


Follow You Down

by fairietailed



Category: All For The Game - Nora Sakavic
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, M/M, Reincarnation AU, but they always come back okay, shrugs, the boys die sometimes, the ending is canon compliant
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-19
Updated: 2019-05-21
Packaged: 2020-03-07 16:45:56
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 11
Words: 24,786
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18877165
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fairietailed/pseuds/fairietailed
Summary: In every life, they find each other.One never remembers -- not really, not until it’s too late, not until it matters.One never forgets.--A Reincarnation AU.





	1. prehistory

**Author's Note:**

> Each chapter will be from Neil's POV. Andrew will be the one speaking, though, during the Wheel to Rebirth.
> 
> Please know that due to the fact that they go through various lives, their names will be changing as well. The characters, though, will stay the same at their core.
> 
> I will also say this:
> 
> This story is very important to me. It has a close place in my heart for many reasons.
> 
> The first and most important being the fact that it is a love letter, in a way, to my fiance, who was killed in February. I have been thinking about this idea a lot; the idea that maybe it just isn't the right time. It takes more than one life, sometimes, to catch up to where we need to be with our other half. The idea that even if I can't be with him now, I will be with him again.
> 
> He had always asked me to write him into one of my fics. I did him one better: I wrote one for him.
> 
> For you, Ru.

**START**

 

-+-

 

> In every life, they find each other.
> 
> One never remembers -- not really, not until it’s too late, not until it matters.
> 
> One never forgets.

 

-+-

 

**Prehistory**

 

The air is cold. But his cave is warm. There is little food now. But they will go hunting tomorrow.

He runs his hands along the cave wall, standing and guiding himself to the opening that looks out over the camp. 

En watches the others shuffle about in the evening light, stoking the fire and muttering softly to one another, deciding the party for the hunt tomorrow. He makes his way to the fire, sitting on one of the rocks that had been pulled closer to the pit.

He volunteers his services. Kay and Ar acknowledge him with a nod. It’s enough, he knows. Permission to join them. He nods back.

He stays by the fire only a bit longer before he decides to go for a trek through the forest. Kay gives him a look before he goes, as if in warning that it’s getting late, but he just waves a hand, already understanding the risks. He won’t be long.

It’s not quite dark yet, but not quite mid-day, either. It’s enough to remind him to hurry but not so much that he can’t see the path through the trees, and he uses the light to take in his surroundings as he goes. The heaviest cold has passed, and now the flowers are blooming. It’s pretty. He likes it.

He makes it to the edge of the cliffs he frequents, and he lets himself settle onto the edge, his feet hanging off the side as he looks at the long drop below him. It’s silent for a while, and then he hears something in the underbrush.

He scrambles away from the ledge, crouching low, ready to run at the slightest sign of trouble. Just because it’s not dark yet doesn’t mean that predators are not out.

He hopes it’s not a predator, though. He doesn’t want to see Kay’s smug face when he finds out.

To his relief, it’s not a sabertooth. It’s a boy.

He looks the same size as En, and his hair is light like sand and his skin is covered in smudges of dirt and mud. His eyes are wide, and En has never seen a color quite like it.

He lets out a click and a grunt, and En tilts his head to the side.

“En,” he says, pointing to himself. The boy tilts his own head, and En points a finger in his direction. “You?”

The boy points to himself, frowning, and lets out another soft click of his teeth. They’re bared, almost predatory, and En frowns back.

“Rude.”

The boy lets out what could be a huff of laughter, though En really isn’t sure. Does he even know what he’s saying? Who is he? Is he from one of the other tribes?

He tries again, taking a step forward.

“You?”

He’s still pointing at the boy in front of him, who looks offended at the action. He steps forward as well, swatting En’s hand away before jabbing his own finger into En’s chest and chirping angrily.

En shoves his hand off his chest, taking a few steps back to put some distance between them. The sand-haired boy follows him, and En really isn’t sure how to attempt a conversation at this point.

“Tribe?”

He tries to figure out if this kid is from a neighboring tribe, at least, but he really isn’t sure if he knows what En is even saying. Judging by the annoyed grunts that the boy lets out, he would say he doesn’t.

The boy jabs at En’s chest again, his teeth snapping, and En frowns, pushing the boy back.

And now they’re shoving at each other, both angry over who-knows-what, but En will be damned if he lets this stranger get in the last word. Chirp. Grunt. Whatever.

They’re in the middle of their shoving match when it happens.

The boy gets in a particularly strong jab and En goes whirling backward, his left foot slipping off the edge of the cliff ledge that he hadn’t realized they had backed themselves up to. The boy’s eyes go wide as En’s stomach flips, and En reaches out, grabs what he can, scrambles for purchase-

He latches onto the boy’s arm, holding fast and pulling him over.

And then they’re falling, tumbling down the cliff side, screaming and kicking and grabbing onto one another-

En feels something snap.

And then there is dark.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Updates should most likely be coming two chapters at a time.
> 
> I hope you enjoy, and stick with this until the end. I promise it will be worth it ((if for nothing other than andriel in period costumes)).
> 
> Thank you all for reading.


	2. 20 A.D.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Well then, Bee. What am I supposed to be doing now?”  
> “Now? It’s time for you to go. For the cycle to reset.”  
> “Will he remember?”  
> “No. But you will.”

**On the Wheel to Rebirth**

 

-+-

 

> “This hardly seems fair."
> 
> “Ah, but when is life ever?”
> 
> “Don’t patronize me. Why am I dragged into this boy’s mess?”
> 
> “One could say that this was your fault, no?”
> 
> “I couldn’t understand him. I was annoyed. He shoved me. It’s his own fault.”
> 
> “Soulmates are a funny thing, aren’t they?”
> 
> “Are you going to continue to answer my questions with your own?”
> 
> A smile. “Will you ask me something that’s worth answering?”
> 
> “Ah.” A pause. “What is your name?”
> 
> “Hm.” Another pause. Longer than the last. “I suppose you can call me Bee.”
> 
> “Well then, Bee. What am I supposed to be doing now?”
> 
> “Now? It’s time for you to go. For the cycle to reset.”
> 
> A pause. Heavier than the others.
> 
> “Will he remember?”
> 
> “No.” Another smile. Softer than the one before. “But you will.”

 

-+-

 

**Jerusalem, 20 AD**

 

“Have you heard the news?”

Abram looks up from his flock, eyes flitting to where Kedar leans against the fence post, arms folded across his chest.

“What news?” Abram asks, because there is no use ignoring Kedar when he has something to say.

“About the prophet Joseph.”

Abram’s brows pull together, and he steps around one of his sheep to make his way across the field. “What about him?”

“He’s supposed to be coming through our town, soon. Ram wants to witness his prophecies.”

“Ram can go fuck himself,” Abram says, ignoring the look that Kedar shoots him as he does so. “He doesn’t care about any prophecies unless they are about himself. That’s probably the only reason he wants to see him.”

“It would still be interesting,” Kedar says, pushing off of the fence post and striding alongside Abram as they move back toward the town. “I would like to hear what he has to say.”

“Then you can go with Ram, can’t you?”

“You know that it’s not that easy.”

Abram sighs, looking up with annoyance. He hates that Kedar is so tall. It makes things more difficult for him when he wants to be intimidating. He eyes the birthmark beneath Kedar’s left eye; it’s dark, crawling along his cheekbone like a wine stain that never got washed out. Ram has one just like it -- they often joked that they must be brothers, somehow, unrelated but still bound by fate.

Abram has always scoffed at the idea.

Fate has no place here.

He shrugs, though, caving to Kedar’s demands and agreeing to go with him when the time comes. He ignores the grateful smile that Kedar flashes at him before they go their separate ways.

* * *

The prophet comes two weeks later.

It’s a spectacle, really, and Abram thinks that it’s entirely unnecessary. There is no point in wasting their finest wines and sacrificing their finest animals for a more-than-likely false prophet that will only leave in less than a few days’ time.

And judging by the expression on the prophet’s face as he scans the crowd in front of him, Abram would be inclined to believe that he would agree.

And yet he stands with Kedar and Ram anyway, watching as Joseph nods curtly to the people that surround him, flanked by a tall, smiling man and a man that is Joseph’s own mirror-image, the only difference in the two being the colored robes that they are wearing.

They ask for directions to the nearest inn, and once inside, do not emerge.

It’s underwhelming, really, and Abram lets Kedar know this on their walk back to his house.

“Just give them time,” he says, and Abram lets out a huff of laughter.

“It will take more than rumors to impress me,” he says, and Kedar falls silent for the rest of the way.

* * *

 Abram wonders if prophets are actually required to do anything in order to be considered prophets.

Since his arrival, Abram hasn’t seen Joseph do a single thing outside the realm of normalcy. He eats his food at the inn, takes walks through town with his companions, sits alone outside of the stables that Abram tends to, leans against the fence that overlooks Abram’s pastures.

He has a habit of showing up where Abram is, he notices.

Abram, on the other hand, does not acknowledge him. He lets him watch, lets him stare him down with his lidded hazel eyes, his gaze heavy and his expression a practiced blank slate of little to no emotion. But he never starts conversation, and Abram does not either. It’s a stalemate that Abram has decided he won’t lose out on.

At least, that is, until meets the prophet Joseph three nights later.

He should be asleep, really, but it doesn’t come. Instead, he is plagued by nightmares that he had thought to be long gone, of times he isn’t sure exist, of hazel eyes and black cloth wrapped around arms, of blood spilled and screams of anguish, or laughter and riots and legs burning from running until he can’t move anymore.

His room feels like it's suffocating him slowly, and so he leaves.

He makes it to the field that his flock is grazing in, some wandering and some sleeping, and the night air is cold as he hikes himself onto the fence to sit, staring out over the fields in front of him. The moon is full tonight, and it’s light enough that he can see for a way before the darkness swallows its surroundings.

A twig snaps behind him, and he nearly falls off the fence in his haste to see who it is.

The prophet raises his hands in mock-surrender, face neutral.

“Apologies.”

Abram shrugs, though his brow is creased, and he notices the prophet’s eyes flit upward to catch it before he can smooth his expression out.

“To what do I owe this honor?”

Joseph scoffs, taking a few steps forward before motioning to the fence beside Abram in question. Abram nods, and Joseph pulls himself up to sit beside him.

“Spare me. I know that you haven’t fallen for the charade like the rest of them.”

The corners of Abram’s mouth twitch upward.

“Ah,” he says. “So it is a charade?”

Joseph allows his lips to curl upward, and he tilts his head back to look up at the stars above him.

“Not entirely,” he says. “Just not what they think.”

“Then what is it?”

“Fortunes.”

Abram frowns. “Isn’t that the same thing?”

“No,” Joseph says. “They believe they are from the Lord himself.”

“And they aren’t?”

“I am not calling witness to burning bushes or sacrificial lambs, am I?”

Abram shrugs. “I don’t know,” he says. “I haven’t bothered to listen to any of your words.”

Joseph lets out a laugh at this, and Abram smiles. He looks out over the fields again, watching a baby lamb curl up closer to its mother. He hums in thought.

“What are your prophecies about, then?”

“They’re dreams,” Joseph says. “Images that I can’t quite place. Flashes here, flashes there. There is a cliff’s edge, pain, scars, people that I have never met-” he catches Abram’s eyes, and his gaze becomes sharp and calculating as he searches for something that Abram isn’t quite sure of. “-and blue. A hauntingly deep blue that no shade has ever been able to match.”

Abram breaks the stalemate first, looking down at the ground below his feet.

“How are you known as a prophet, then?”

Joseph shrugs, and Abram catches the action in the corner of his eye.

“Sometimes the visions are a bit clearer,” he says. “Easier to narrow down and pinpoint. Sometimes they’re something that can be fixed. So I offer my services when those times come.” He smiles, then, like the edge of a pair of shears. “Every other question is a matter of telling the people what they want to hear.”

Abram flashes a grin of his own. “So you’re a liar, then?”

“Oh,” Joseph says, a hint of humor in his voice. “I am many things, Abram. But I am not a liar.”

They fall into a comfortable silence, sitting side by side until the sun begins to peek out over the mountain range at the far end of the fields. Joseph climbs off of the fence, then, leaving Abram alone in the not-quite-morning haze.

* * *

The prophet is gone the next day.

Abram never sees him again, a hollow sort of emptiness settling into his chest for every day that passes.


	3. 235 A.D.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Would you like to try again?”
> 
> “Do I have a choice?”

**On the Wheel to Rebirth**

 

-+-

 

 

> “Why did you leave?”
> 
> “I couldn’t stay. Not then.”
> 
> “Why not?”
> 
> “It was too much. It was too soon.”
> 
> “You had time to prepare.”
> 
> “It was different, being there. Seeing him.”
> 
> “You wanted to apologize.”
> 
> “He would have no idea what I was talking about if I did.”
> 
> “Would you like to try again?”
> 
> “Do I have a choice?”
> 
> A smile. “There is always a choice.”

 

-+-

 

**Rome, 235 AD**

 

The sun hangs low over Rome, painting the sky in a near lilac burst that bleeds out like the dyes used to color his tunics. It’s warm, even for the late afternoon, and Alex can’t decide whether or not he should bother meeting up with Kostas or simply head to bed early.

Kostas makes the decision for him, showing up at his villa and barking out his name until he shows himself.

“Let’s go,” he says, and Alex lets out a heavy sigh.

“It’s too hot,” he tries half-heartedly, but Kostas ignores him, heading down to the Coliseum. “I don’t feel like watching the gladiators today.”

“The emperor's son is fighting today,” Kostas says. “You must.”

His head hurts. He had been up last night, again, his dreams a swirling whirlwind of hazel and night stars and sheep laid out in fields that stretched on until darkness swallowed them whole. There had been sounds of laughter and screams of pain, the feeling of falling and falling and falling until he had woken up with his body shaking and his mother snapping at him to keep quiet, and he hadn’t gone back to sleep after.

The roar of the Coliseum is no help. He tries his best to drown it out, to watch the chariot races and the games for a while, but he’s exhausted by the time the gladiator fights begin. A handful of fights pass without him paying much attention, and then suddenly Kostas sits up a bit straighter, hitting Alex’s leg a few times in order to get his attention.

“Here.”

Alex looks out over the arena, and there is the emperor’s son, Rhodes, a wide grin on his face and his wine-stain birthmark beneath his left eye. Alex notices Kostas let his hand drift up to touch at his own, and he doesn’t bother to tell him to stop. It’s a bit jarring, he thinks, whenever Kostas watches Rhodes battle, knowing that he was supposed to be there too, knowing that he could have been the best, if only Rhodes had not broken his hand beyond repair the year prior.

Alex lets his eyes fall to the scars on Kostas’s left hand, itching at his birthmark, and he feels a jolt of pity run through him, soft but sure. He lets him have his moment before he gently swats at his hand, and Kostas lets it drop back into his lap.

Alex settles into his seat as the crowd around him roars, and he cranes his neck a bit to watch the gate on the far side of the arena open for the competitor.

It’s a boy.

Or at least he looks like a boy from where Alex sits, and he can’t be older than Alex himself. There are black strips of fabric wrapped around his forearms from wrist to elbow. He is blond, short, and built, and he carries himself with a bored gait that makes him seem unconcerned with the fact that he’s walking to his death.

No one fights the emperor’s son and lives.

The woman beside him vocalizes his thoughts for him, letting out a small _tsk_ and a “shame, he’s so young and handsome.”

And then the fight begins.

It’s a back and forth that, Alex will admit, is pretty evenly matched in terms of skill, especially considering the boy has nothing but a barely-held-together sword and wooden shield and virtually no armor to speak of, while Rhodes is the exact opposite; his brand new blade and shield both shine in the sun, and his armor is scarce but heavy, placed in the most strategic places possible.

It’s an unfair fight.

But the Romans never cared about fair.

The boy holds his own, though, for quite some time, deflecting Rhode’s attacks with a bored expression and a flick of his wrists, ditching his wooden shield after a particularly bad hit sends it splintering into a dozen different pieces. And then Rhodes hits his blade at an angle that causes it to fly from his hands, and the boy has to resort to dodging to stay alive.

Something in Alex’s mind reels.

He blinks, and it’s night, and he’s sitting in front of a field that spans for miles.

He blinks, and he’s back, and the boy is sliding through the dirt to avoid the blade of the emperor’s son.

He blinks, and hazel swirls around him, and he’s falling, falling and falling and falling and-

The crowd roars suddenly, and he’s snapped back into the present.

The boy is on the floor, Rhodes standing over him, blood pooling around his legs and a sharp glare etched into his features. Rhodes is grinning, wide and manic, and he looks up to where his father sits, waiting for permission to end it.

The boy turns his head, just barely, and Alex swears that he is staring at him.

The boy grins.

The Emperor nods.

Rhodes brings down his blade.


	4. 1587

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Today marks the journey home for those leaving the colony of Roanoke."

**On the Wheel to Rebirth**

 

-+-

 

 

> “Your sense of humor leaves much to be desired.”
> 
> “I’m not quite sure what you’re referring to.”
> 
> “It’s hard to apologize, Bee, when a blade is run through your throat.”
> 
> A smile.
> 
> “I do not always have control as to where you end up, you know.”
> 
> “So much for choices, then, hm?”
> 
> “Ah. We may not always have control over where our destiny leads us, but we always have the choices to guide us there.”
> 
> “That statement is contradictory, Bee.”
> 
> “I suppose it might be.”
> 
> “You’re not much help, are you?”
> 
> “Who said I ever was?”

-+-

 

**From the journal of Christopher Philips, 1586:**

 

_Today marks the journey home for those leaving the colony of Roanoke._

_It has only been a year, but tensions are running high at the colony, and a handful of us have decided to return to England with Sir Francis Drake, who offered voyage for those of us who wished it._

_I was nearly tempted to leave, though I changed my mind at the last possible minute and decided not to board the ship. Adrian said that I was being foolish, and that I should just head home. He left, and in fact was one of the first to volunteer to do so. He always found the colony boring. I’m not sure why he came along in the first place._

_I will admit, though, that as I watched the ship leave, something pulled at my heart as he disappeared over the horizon._

_I have been having dreams, again. About things that haven't happened or things that seem as though they may have. Of Adrian's eyes, of the roar of a crowd as a blade shines in the sunlight, of flames and falling and the miles and miles of the sea. It’s odd; they grow more vivid with each day, to the point where I almost worry I may be hallucinating. Maybe I should have gone back home -- at least there I could see a proper doctor._

_I do miss Adrian’s company. He was witty, and smart, and kept me entertained on days where nothing happened. I know he would never admit it, but I was the same for him. I never did get to ask him about his own dreams, or what he thought they might mean. He would often comment on the blue of my eyes, or the red of my hair, and then go quiet before mentioning sword fights or fields of sheep or falling down cliff-sides, apologizing to me for something that had most likely happened in a dream. I never really understood it, but I accepted his apologies all the same. It seemed to put him at ease. I never liked seeing him upset._

_I will have to ask him about it when he returns._

_He had promised that he would, and Adrian has never been one to break a promise._

* * *

**From the journal of David Arthur, 1587:**

 

_Today we landed at Roanoke._

_We were supposed to be leaving for Chesapeake Bay within the day, only stopping here to pick up the colonists that had been left, but when we arrived, we found the colony completely abandoned._

_It was haunting, really, to walk throughout the empty colony, expecting someone to show themselves and claim this was some sort of elaborate joke, or perhaps they were all out gathering supplies, or meeting with the natives. But nobody came._

_We even found a skeleton. A whole person, one whom we aren’t sure how to identify._

_It’s unsettling, to say the least._

_One of the settlers that had been here prior had returned with us. Adrian something-or-other. He isn’t very forthcoming with personal information. Although he had mentioned that there was a boy his own age waiting for him, here. A friend, though he wouldn’t admit to that term._

_However, as I watched him searching frantically through every building we came across, kicking down doors and snarling at anyone who attempted to stop him, I would say that the term friend would be hard to deny._

_Fernandez has told us that we are no longer heading to Chesapeake. He claims that we are to build the new colony where Roanoke is, and just rebuild on what is already here. I wish we were able to head to the new colony, though I suppose it does make sense to simply use the supplies that are already available to us here._

_Adrian disappeared as soon as Fernandez said that we would be staying. He headed off into the forest behind the colony, claiming to go searching for the missing colonists that had been here before us._

_Personally, I believe this is a lost cause. I would like to keep my organs inside my body, however, so I will be keeping this thought to myself lest Adrian decide to gut me for it._

_Perhaps ‘friend’ is not a generous enough term to use, in regards to Adrian and Christopher._

_Although perhaps we will never truly know._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> these are the two shortest chapters I have done, I believe.
> 
> so I'll be posting one more today, too!


	5. 1663

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Finn Moon,” he says, arms extended outward as if in friendly greeting. “Captain of the Fox, first Royal Guard to the King. You’re an awful long way from home, aren’t you? What business?”

**On the Wheel to Rebirth**

 

-+-

 

 

> “I hate this, Bee.”
> 
> “I know.”

 

-+-

 

**The Caribbean Sea, 1663**

 

Finn sits high in the crow’s nest, his feet hanging off of the side as the wind whips his hair around him. He can see the red strands as they catch in his eyelashes; he’ll have to fix it soon. Maybe he would braid it this time.

There’s something about being this high up that unsettles him. It’s not a fear -- he has none of that. He can’t afford to, not in his line of work. But being this high leaves him with phantom thoughts, with the feeling of falling, with the feeling of breaking against rocks that are far below him. He has nightmares, sometimes. He tries not to think about them.

It’s why he spends so much time in the crow’s nest. There’s no need for this fear, no need for these intrusive thoughts. And so he pushes them aside, curling up high off of the ground and staring out over the expanse of the sea in front of him, searching for the target he knows they’re looking for.

“Captain!”

Vince calls up to him from the deck below, and Finn pokes his head out from over the edge of the nest.

“Aye?”

“Just making sure you’re there, sir.”

Finn scoffs.

“And just where else would I be, Vince? Would I have jumped overboard due to boredom?”

“Perhaps, sir.”

Finn smiles, and Vince grins up at him, the birthmark beneath his left eye crinkling a bit in the late afternoon sun.

“Have you seen anything yet?”

“Not yet,” Finn says, sitting back on his heels and scouring the horizon. “He’s elusive today.”

“As every other day, Captain.”

Finn simply hums in acknowledgment, though he knows that Vince can’t hear him. He doesn’t bother responding, and Vince leaves a few moments later to go take up post at the wheel.

Maybe he’ll take a nap up here. There’s nothing much else to do, anyway. Some Monsters want to stay hidden, and to be frank, Finn is perfectly fine with that.

* * *

The Monster appears less than two days later.

Finn is in the crow’s nest, eyes scanning the horizon lazily when he spots it.

It’s a black spot on an otherwise blue backdrop. He isn’t sure why this is the case; most pirates make it a habit to blend in, not to stand out, but he has never had the opportunity to ask.

Finn swings his legs off the side of the crow’s nest, sliding down the rope ladder that hangs off the edge and whistling to gather his crew’s attention.

“Monster,” he says. “Set course due East. Prepare cannons. Arm yourselves.”

There’s a flurry of motion as his crew takes in what he’s said. And then they’re off, manning cannons and gathering their weapons, the nervous energy that passes over them thick enough to hang in the air like fog. It was always this way before a firefight. It was always this way before they faced the Monster’s crew.

The Monster allows them to pull up beside it. Though they’ve armed them, there’s no real need for cannons. They had come to an unspoken agreement after their first fight; there is no need to demolish perfectly good ships when their fight is with the people on it.

They’re even kind enough to extend a gangplank for Finn and his crew to cross on. They do so quickly, though they know that the plank itself won’t be shoved out from under them. The Monsters were never one to take cheap shots. At least not ones that low.

The crew is already waiting for them when they step onto the deck. It’s a relatively small crew, and a relatively small ship. Finn had had to leave a handful of his own members behind due to the fact that they most likely wouldn’t all fit. But that was fine. It was fine.

Their captain steps forward, a lazy grin hanging on his lips. His hat is slightly crooked, his eyes half-lidded, and Finn can’t help but wonder if he’s a bit drunk already. He wouldn’t be surprised if that were the case.

“Finn Moon,” he says, arms extended outward as if in friendly greeting. “Captain of the Fox, first Royal Guard to the King. You’re an awful long way from home, aren’t you? What business?”

Finn lets his own smile slip across his face. “Theo Douglas,” he says. “Captain of the Monster, the Monster of the Sea, enemy of the Crown and wanted fugitive. I’ve come looking for you. Will we be doing this song and dance all over again? Or will you finally give yourself up?”

“I’ve always wondered about that nickname,” Theo says, his grin unwavering. “Why call me the Monster of the Sea when my ship is already called the Monster? It seems a bit redundant, don’t you think? It certainly makes my titles run a bit long. They should come up with one a bit shorter.”

“You could go by Asshole,” Finn suggests, and Theo lets out a barking laugh.

“This is why I like you, Moon,” he says. “You’re funny. A real funny guy. Like the fact that you keep showing up here, expecting me to leave my family behind to go to prison for some prick that can’t even properly run a country. I don’t regret stealing from him. In fact, I would do it all over again.”

Finn hums. “Then I would have to find you all over again, too.”

Theo’s grin grows wider. “Are you flirting, Moon? Is that what this is? Because if that’s the case we can just skip this friendly bit of banter and head straight to my quarters.”

This time it’s Finn’s turn to laugh, shrugging his shoulders as he takes a few steps forward.

“As tempting as that would be,” he says, “I have a job to do. So I’m going to have to politely decline.”

Theo’s lazy grin turns sharp, and he pulls his sabre from its sheath in one smooth movement.

“A shame,” he says. “Things were just starting to get interesting.”

Finn pulls his own sword out, mirroring Theo’s stance, and takes a few more steps forward, letting the metal of his weapon slide against the pirate’s.

“Ah, Theo,” he says, the man’s name dripping from his lips like honey. “You always find me interesting, in the end.”

Theo uses his thumb to wipe his grin from his face.

“And so I do, unfortunately.”

His first strike is fast, but Finn has no problem keeping up. He has trained with the palace guards since he was a child; no one has been able to beat him.

Though he thinks if they had long enough, Theo might come close.

The sounds of the others taking up arms echoes around them, but they pay them no mind. They strike and parry and move as if a single unit. The circle each other like predators and prey, neither willing to give up the hold they have on their ground. It’s an even match, and Finn relishes in it every time they fight. They both have strengths and weaknesses, though they seem to balance each other out well enough to counter with no problems.

Where Finn is practiced and precise, Theo is scrappy and dirty. Where Theo is heavy hits and brute strength, Finn is agile feet and quick angles. They’re the push and pull of the tide, the rise and fall of the sun and moon, a constant give and take that always leaves Finn breathless.

“You would make a fine guard,” Finn says, striking out against Theo.

“I would rather die a free man on the sea than a chained man on land.” Theo counters him both verbally and physically. Finn frowns.

“I do not wear chains,” he says. “And neither would you.”

“Not all chains are able to be seen,” Theo points out. “You belong to the Crown, and I refuse to be anyone’s property.”

“The Crown doesn’t see everything,” Finn says, and this is enough to make Theo pause. “What they don’t know can’t hurt them.”

“Ah,” Theo hums, though it comes out as a huff of air, a quick exhale as he dodges Finn’s sabre. “See? This is why you interest me.”

Theo flicks his wrist, his sabre catching the end of Finn’s and wrenching it from his grip. Finn ducks low, reaching into the holster around his ankle and pulling out a dagger. He pulls a similar one from the holster on the back of his waist. Theo grins.

“I didn’t know the Crown’s Guard taught its captains how to knife fight.”

Finn runs, keeping low, ducking beneath Theo’s blade and barreling up into his personal space. He grabs Theo’s wrist, pinching where it’s softest, forcing his arm upward. Theo hisses, dropping the sword, and he pulls his arm from Finn’s grip and leaps back. He pulls out his own dagger, eyes glinting in challenge.

“They don’t,” Finn says simply, his grin turning feral. It’s his father’s smile, and he resists the urge to wipe it off his face the same way Theo had done earlier.

Theo pauses, taking heaving breaths, and seems to debate with himself for a moment before he speaks.

“I learned on Tortuga,” he says, offering it to Finn in exchange. Finn takes it, and nods.

“My father.”

Theo nods once before diving back in.

They fight for another ten minutes, both exhausted and neither letting up. The banter trails off, both of them wanting to save their breath, and finally, _finally_ , Finn makes progress.

He takes a swipe at Theo, who blocks, but doesn’t expect Finn to feint left when he does. The uses the hilt of his dagger to jab into Theo’s ribs, taking the remaining air from his lungs, and he kicks out and takes Theo with him onto the floor of the deck. Finn sits on Theo’s chest, grinning, letting the tip of his knife dig into the soft spot beneath Theo’s chin.

He uses it to tilt his head back, and hum thoughtfully.

“This is an awfully good look on you, Monster.”

Theo flashes him a grin.

“I could say the same to you.”

“I suppose this means you’ve lost.”

“I suppose it does.”

“Will you come with me now?”

“As tempting as the offer is,” Theo throws his words back at him, hazel eyes flashing. “I have a job to do. So I will have to politely decline.”

“And what job would that be?” Finn asks.

“Keeping you on your toes.”

Finn tilts his head, pushing the knife a bit further. A drop of blood rolls down Theo’s neck.

“Face it, Moon. Your job is boring. But I bring you some form of excitement, even if it is in small bursts. And I will admit, you do the same for me.”

“What a day,” Finn says. “I’ve bested the Monster of the Sea _and_ I’ve gotten him to admit that he likes me.”

“I hate you,” Theo points out. “Every inch of you. But that doesn’t mean that I don’t think you are one of the only interesting things on this side of the Caribbean.”

Finn hums in thought for a moment. He looks down at Theo, who looks back up at him with one eyebrow raised in a silent challenge.

He makes up his mind.

He stands.

“Vince,” he calls, and his first-mate looks over at him from his place at the edge of the boat. It’s a fleeting glance, Finn knows, because he is currently wrapped up in a sword fight with Theo’s twin brother, but he knows he heard him.

“Pack up,” he says. “We’re retreating.”

“What?” Vince sounds annoyed, and confused, and a bit offended at the thought. Finn shrugs.

“Our people are too injured. We can’t afford to lose any more men.”

Vince pauses, as does Theo’s twin, and both look around, brows furrowed.

“Our men are fine,” he counters. “We haven’t lost a single-”

“Our men are injured,” Finn insists, straightening his jacket and moving toward the gangplank. “Do not question me. We’re leaving.”

Halfway to the gangplank he turns and sees that Theo has righted himself, fixing his hat so that it lays a bit crooked. He has his lazy grin hanging on his face once more, and he gives Finn a two-finger salute.

“Better luck next time,” he says, and Finn shoots him a grin.

“Next time, you’ll be coming with me.”

Theo’s grin seems to grow, though he doesn’t say anything as Finn crosses onto his own ship. His crew removes the gangplank, and they slowly sail away.

“You had him,” Vince says, glaring down at Finn as they stand at the railing of the ship. “The prince won’t be happy to hear about this.”

“The prince will hear nothing,” Finn says. “Other than the fact that we were outmanned and outmatched. We will hunt him down and find him again. We’ll get him next time.”

“You can’t let him go forever,” Vince says.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” is Finn’s only reply before he heads back to the crow’s nest to watch the Monster slink its way across the horizon.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> you think i wouldn't use this as an opportunity for gratuitous pirate fights?


	6. 1692

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "I'm fine," he says, and Ansel scoffs. "Really. I am. I'm here, right? With you."
> 
> "For now," Ansel says. "Though I'm not convinced it will last."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW: non-graphic imagery of being burned at the stake

**On the Wheel to Rebirth**

 

-+-

 

> “Oh, that one seemed fun.”
> 
> “I will admit, Bee, it wasn’t as awful as some of the others.”
> 
> “But you never fell quite into step with him, did you?”
> 
> “I had already told him, I would rather die a free man on the sea than a chained man on land.”
> 
> “And you did just that, didn’t you.”
> 
> “Hurricanes are a bitch, Bee.”
> 
> “So they are.”

 

-+-

 

**Salem, Massachusetts, 1692**

 

Elias sits on the hayloft of the barn, his legs pulled to his chest and his chin resting on his knees. He listens to the rain as it hits the wood of the barn roof, and he watches the leak in the far corner as some of the water drips through the cracks. He counts them, matching his breathing with the pattern as it falls.

He can hear his father searching for him outside, and he attempts to make himself smaller, curling in on himself and squeezing his eyes shut. 

He knows, logically, that hiding will only make things worse. But he can't bring himself to climb out of the loft, and can't bring himself to face the heavy-handed blows he knows he'll receive once he heads back to the house.

He isn't entirely sure what he had done this time. He tries to think back to the events of the day; maybe he had spilled some of his food, maybe he had forgotten to do some of his chores, or maybe he simply opened his mouth one too many times.

Whatever it was, he would have to face it eventually.

He hears the barn door open beneath him, and he holds his breath as he counts the footsteps that approach the ladder to the loft.

Instead of his father, though, a tuft of blond hair greets him, followed by the ever-bored face of Ansel, his hazel eyes staring Elias down.

"How did you find me?" he asks, and Ansel scoffs as he pulls himself up the ladder, tumbling into the hayloft and scooting toward Elias.

"You're not exactly hard to find."

Elias grins. "Only because you know where to look."

Ansel gives him a flat look, and Elias lets out a laugh. Their knees knock together from how close they sit, facing each other, the silence settling around them until the only noise is their soft breathing and the drip of the leak in the roof.

"I had another dream."

Ansel says it so quietly that Elias almost misses it. He looks up at him, waiting but not prompting, and Ansel takes his time in continuing.

"There was a fire. I couldn't stop it. I saw you-" 

He cuts off, his lips pulled tight, and Elias frowns. He reaches out, not touching until Ansel gives him a short nod. He lets his fingers trace along the black fabric that winds around Ansel's forearms, careful in his movements and avoiding Ansel's gaze.

"I'm fine," he says, and Ansel scoffs. "Really. I am. I'm here, right? With you."

Ansel lifts his own hand, holding it just above Elias's face. He nods, and Ansel cups a palm over his cheek, feeling the skin beneath his fingers with a look that Elias can't place. 

"For now," Ansel says. "Though I'm not convinced it will last."

Elias doesn't question him, though he wants to, instead content to sit in the silence of the hayloft, his skin warm beneath Ansel's touch.

* * *

 

"Hiram is holding another burning," Cyrus says, his expression hard as he looks out over the fields that the cattle are grazing in. Elias hums in acknowledgment, and Cyrus continues.

"He claims Miss Bishop from down the way is a witch. That she's been feeding the people of the town lies and worships the Devil with her coven at night."

"Miss Bishop is a kind woman who tends to the elderly and cares for the children without complaint," Elias says. "Hiram is simply throwing blame to avoid the shame of a woman rejecting his advances."

Cyrus makes a face. "She did not reject his advances."

Elias scoffs. "Is that what he told you?" 

"Regardless," Cyrus pushes on, "the trial was already held and she'll be burned within the next few days. Will you be attending?" 

"Why would I do such a thing?" 

"To show that you do not approve of witchcraft."

"There is no such thing, Cyrus, and you know it. These witch hunts are simply men and women driven by boredom and personal grudges. I will not stand by and watch an innocent woman burn."

He lets his eyes fall on the birthmark beneath Cyrus's left eye.

"I know that if Hiram didn't have such a hold on your spine, you may feel the same."

Elias turns to walk away, but not before he catches Cyrus flinch at his statement.

* * *

 

The hayloft is cold as Elias sits at the open loft door, watching the smoke from the pyre billow upward into the night sky, blocking out the stars above.

"You won't stop this by watching."

Elias doesn't turn around as Ansel climbs up beside him, letting his legs hang off the side of the barn. Elias shrugs. 

"I couldn't stop this regardless."

"It's not your responsibility," Ansel says, his tone flat. "What would you have done?" 

"I don't know," Elias says, heated. "Something. She was a good woman. She didn't deserve this."

"None of them do," Ansel says. "Especially considering none of them were magic. None of them were evil." There's a pause, like he's tasting the next words that sit on his tongue before he speaks them. "None of them had visions." 

“Ansel,” Elias says slowly, clearly, letting his hands hover over Ansel’s face until the other boy meets his gaze. “Even if they did, that does not mean that they deserve to be burned.”

Ansel nods, once, and turns to watch the smoke billowing over the town below them.

* * *

 

“Your father did this to you.”

It’s not so much a question as it is a statement of fact, and Elias winces a bit as Ansel pokes at the bruise on his cheek. He can’t deny it, and Ansel knows.

“I didn’t tend to the fire properly. It went out in the night and he had gotten cold.”

Ansel scoffs. “If he wanted a fire to go on all night and burn down your house, he should have tended to it himself. Maybe the flames would have swallowed him whole and saved us all a lot of trouble.”

The corner of Elias’s mouth twitched upward. “You know I would have been in that house too, right?”

“You would have been smart enough to get out in time.”

“Ah, of course.”

“Of course.”

It was nearly winter, now, and Elias can feel the cold seeping through his cloak. He pulls it tighter around himself, though it doesn’t help as much as he wishes it did. Ansel looks no better, so Elias decides to steer them into the nearest tavern, kicking the door shut behind them and making their way to a corner table.

They sit comfortably side by side, talking about activities of the town or their families or their farms. Elias tells Ansel about his mother, who has gotten sick again recently and may not make it through the winter. In turn, Ansel tells Elias of his father, who had run away a few months prior with a woman that they had never met before.

“Good riddance,” Ansel says, shrugging. Elias laughed.

“That’s one less mouth to feed, I suppose.”

Ansel opens his mouth to respond, but is cut off by the sound of a chair scraping across the hardwood floor of he tavern. They both look up across the room, catching the tail end of a conversation that had grown heated.

“-what you’re talking about.”

“Don’t you?” It’s Hiram, standing nose to nose with a man that Elias recognizes as the brother of Eliza Bishop.

Eliza’s brother, Josiah, looks ready to swing. “How dare you,” he says, and Hiram cocks his head to the side, waiting for him to continue. “How dare you falsely accuse my sister of something so atrocious, only to come and gloat to me after.”

“Ah,” Hiram says, “that’s where you’re wrong. I am not gloating. I’m simply telling you that there was nothing that could be done for your wretched sister. That she was too far corrupted. That maybe if you had caught this sooner, you could have saved her.”

Josiah’s fists shake at his sides, and Hiram looks down at them, amused.

“You wouldn’t strike the governor’s brother, would you, Josiah?” He asks. “Unless you were corrupted by your sister as well.”

“No,” a voice calls from beside Elias. He turns, shocked, to watch Ansel step around the table as he starts to head across the room. “He’s simply upset because you’re an asshole, Hiram.”

The grin flickers on Hiram’s face, and he narrows his eyes as he watches Ansel closely.

“You would dare speak to me in such a way?”

“I would,” Ansel says. “And I did. Because you are an asshole.”

Hiram looks livid, and Elias isn’t sure whether to be amused or frightened.

“Leave him alone. He has been put through Hell once due to your false allegations on an otherwise wonderful woman. He doesn’t need you to add salt to his still-bleeding wounds.”

“The accusations were not false,” Hiram begins. “Miss Bishop-”

“Refused your advances three weeks prior to your ‘investigation’.” Ansel finishes. “Two weeks prior, she refused you again. The week before, she told you in her kindest words to fuck off, and you got rather angry. And so you snapped.”

Hiram looks ready to do the same now, but Ansel ignores it, stepping into his personal space, unblinking.

“I’ll do Miss Bishop the favor of saying what she was unable to, Hiram,” he says, low and steady. “Fuck off.”

Hiram snarls, his top lip pulled back, and he shoves a finger into Ansel’s chest.

“You will regret this,” he says, and Ansel shrugs.

“I don’t particularly care.”

Hiram leaves, though Elias can’t shake off the worry that nestles itself into the corner of his mind.

* * *

 

That worry comes back in full force a week later.

It had taken a single word from Cyrus, a muttering of “Ansel” before Elias had taken off running, stumbling through town until he made it to the courthouse.

The others are already there; Hiram, a smug grin on his face as he stands in front of the room, Ansel, back straight and neutral in expression, and Ansel’s cousin and twin brother, both of whom could be heard from nearly two streets away.

“He did nothing!” Ansel’s brother looks ready to fight anyone who steps close enough, barely held back by his crying cousin. “You have no proof!”

“Ah,” Hiram says, his grin growing wider, nodding in the direction of the colony governor behind him. “My brother has all of the proof that he needs.”

Hiram holds up a journal, small and leather-bound, and Elias watches Ansel’s hands twitch at his sides.

“You have to have a trial,” Ansel’s cousin says, voice shaking. “You can’t just-”

“But we can,” Hiram says. “False prophecies, dreams of the future, admittance to worshiping false gods and partaking in witchcraft -- there is more than enough here to find him guilty, even without a trial.” He looks at Ansel, an eyebrow raised. “Unless you can say otherwise?”

Ansel is silent.

Elias is not.

“He can’t,” he says, stepping forward into the courtroom. All eyes turn to face him. “I can.”

Ansel’s eyes burn into him, and his voice is low and calculating when he asks, “what are you doing?”

Elias shrugs, in both an _I’m sorry_ and an _I don’t know_ , and lets a smile ghost across his lips.

“They were bound to find out. There’s no use in you taking the blame for me.”

“What are you talking about?” Hiram asks, clearly impatient. “This has records of-”

“Of my own influence, yes,” Elias says, stuffing his hands in his pockets and strolling forward. He moves in front of Ansel, blocking him from view. “Ansel is no witch. He can barely tell his front from his back. It’s me; I am the witch. Ansel was purely under my influence.”

The room sits, silent for a moment, no one sure what to do.

There are alarms ringing in Elias’s ears, every bone in his body begging him to run, but he stands firm, posed between Ansel and death, and he would fall on this sword over and over again if it meant that the other could live.

“Why should I believe you?”

Hiram looks enraged. It doesn’t surprise Elias; Hiram hates Ansel. He has been looking for an excuse to get rid of him for years, and here Elias was, trampling over it with an impressive effort.

He shrugs. “I’ve always been vocal about hating these burnings. Why do you think that is? You were dwindling us down, getting closer and closer to me, and I wasn’t very happy about that.”

“And why should I believe that you would willingly come forward like this?”

Elias smiles. It’s sharp, pointed, his father’s predatory glee etched into his skin until it makes his fingers itch to wipe it away.

“Because,” he says, as if it’s the most obvious thing in the world. “I won’t have someone else taking credit for my work. And you know, Hiram, that I hate when people touch what belongs to me.”

The room falls silent again, its heaviness enveloping them like a fog. Elias can feel Ansel’s breath on his neck, angry and uneven, and he thinks that this is worth it, dying for the boy that he might just love.

“Well,” the governor says from his seat at the front of the room. “I suppose that settles things, then.”

* * *

 

He receives three visitors in the days before his burning.

The first had been Cyrus, who had spent his time hissing at him through his cell door that “this is the most foolish thing you have ever done, Elias. You could have been something. You could have been someone important, someone educated, someone good.” Elias simply shrugged -- or made his best attempt to, at least, with the way his arms were chained to the wall behind him.

He didn’t apologize. He never would.

The second was his father, who said nothing for a very long time. He simply sneered, his hands in his pockets and his chin tilted upward, before he uttered a simple “I should have known” as he left.

And the third, now, is Ansel.

He says nothing for nearly as long as his father had, staring Elias down with a look of pure anger as he grips the cell door so hard his knuckles turn white.

“How dare you,” he says, finally, after what feels like hours. Elias blinks.

“What?”

“How dare you take this in my place,” Ansel says. “They won’t let me reverse this. They say that I don’t know what I’m talking about, that I was under the influence of dark magic.”

Elias smiles, though it’s weak in its attempt.

“Good,” he says, and Ansel frowns. “I would do it again.”

“No one likes a fucking martyr, Elias,” Ansel spits out through his teeth, and Elias attempts to shrug again.

“I wouldn’t be able to live with myself if it had been you.”

Ansel shakes the door, and for a moment Elias thinks it may come off its hinges.

_“And I am supposed to do so instead?”_

Elias swallows.

“I am nothing,” he says. “You are so much more. You have to make it. You have to.”

“Fuck you,” Ansel says, and Elias smiles.

“Come see me off?”

“Like hell.”

* * *

 

As the flames of the pyre work their way up his legs, Elias catches Ansel’s eyes in the crowd. And for a moment, the heat of the fire cannot compare to the heat of his gaze.


	7. 1778

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “I don’t even know your name.”
> 
> “I don’t know yours. What is it this time? Christopher? Finn? Elias?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW: non-graphic imagery of gunshot wounds

**On the Wheel to Rebirth**

 

-+-

 

> “I have to be more careful, moving forward.”
> 
> “Do you believe that if you hadn’t kept a journal, this would not have happened?”
> 
> “Even if it had, I could have prevented him from taking my place.”
> 
> “And what would that accomplish, do you think?”
> 
> “I can’t let him die for me, Bee. I won’t let him.”
> 
> “We do not always have control over the things we want.”
> 
> “I will change that.”

 

-+-

 

**Virginia, 1778**

 

Ephraim hates the colonies.

He had continued to tell himself this as he trekked through the snow with his battalion, rifle slung over his shoulder and his fingers so numb that he’d been worried they’d fall off at any moment.

He hates the colonies.

Fuck, they’re the whole reason he’s here. The whole reason he’s stuck in this God-forsaken predicament in the first place. The colonists had thrown a bunch of perfectly good tea into their harbor, and now Ephraim is here, freezing to death and miserable.

He hates the colonies.

They had reached the battlegrounds, had fought with the Americans for God-knows-how-long, had nearly made a dent in things when he had been shot. 

He had stumbled away from the fighting, panicked and cold and very much shot, and had stumbled down a bank and onto the edge of a river. He hid in the bushes, tired and hungry and _still very much shot_ , and seethed silently to himself about things, waiting for his inevitable death.

Jesus Christ, Ephraim hates the fucking colonies.

He’s busy repeating this to himself like a mantra when a body slides down the side of the bank to rest beside him. He tenses for a moment, worried that he may have been found, and then promptly decides that, _fuck it,_ it’s not like he’s going to live through this anyway, so even if it is some American who’s come to finish the job, he may as well let them. He turns his head, barely, and is met with a pair of angry hazel eyes.

“You,” the man attached to the eyes says, and Ephraim frowns.

“Me,” he confirms, and the man’s brows draw together in annoyance.

“Jesus Christ,” he says.

“I wholeheartedly agree.”

“What are you doing here?” the man asks. Ephraim gestures to his torso with a wave of his hand.

“Isn’t it obvious? I came to get some peace and quiet while I die.”

The man looks down, seemingly realizing that Ephraim has, in fact, been shot. Which Ephraim himself has been aware of for the past however-long-it’s-been since the bullet entered his stomach.

“You can’t,” the man says, and Ephraim snorts.

“As if you have a choice.”

The man’s expression grows even angrier at that statement, somehow, and he looks ready to punch Ephraim in the mouth. Ephraim doesn’t have the heart to stop him.

“Aren’t you an American?” He asks instead, nodding in the direction of the man’s uniform. Or... whatever that monstrosity could be called. “Why are you interested in keeping me alive?”

The man’s jaw tightened, and he seemed to debate with himself a moment before speaking through his teeth.

“Just. Because.”

“That’s an incredible answer,” Ephraim says. “Are all Americans as well-versed as you?”

“Shut up,” the man grits out, slapping his hands over Ephraim’s stomach and pressing down, hard.

Ephraim lets out a choked sound, squeezing his eyes shut and attempting to breathe through the pain. It hadn’t hurt this bad before, he thinks, and he kinda wonders if this guy was sent here to torture information out of him before he kicks the bucket completely.

“I don’t know anything,” he finds himself saying, and the man looks down at him, confused.

“What?”

“Just let go of my stomach,” he wheezes. “You can torture me all you want, but I don’t have any information to give you.”

“I’m not trying to torture you, idiot,” the man says. “I’m trying to stop your bleeding.”

“Well you’re doing a shit job of it,” Ephraim says. “Just let me go.”

“Not until I stitch you up.”

“Until you what?”

But the man just ignores him, reaching into the pack slung over his shoulder and digging out a needle and thread. He lifts up Ephraim’s shirt, threads the needle, and stuffs a piece of cloth into Ephraim’s mouth before pushing the needle through his skin. Ephraim clamps down on the cloth in his mouth, stifling his shouts.

Once finished, the man sits back on his heels, settling into the bushes beside Ephraim with a huff. Ephraim lets out a shaky breath, tugging the cloth from his mouth.

“Now it will take you a bit longer to die,” the man says. “Maybe we can get you to a medic.”

“Why?”

The man lets his gaze slide over to Ephraim, cool and calculating.

“I have my own reasons.”

“I don’t even know your name.”

“I don’t know yours. What is it this time? Christopher? Finn? Elias?”

Ephraim frowns.

“It’s Ephraim.”

The man hums. He reaches into his pack again, this time pulling out an already rolled cigarette and a match to light it. He takes a few drags before offering it to Ephraim, who debates declining before remembering that he’s dying and therefore has nothing to lose. He takes it himself, taking a long drag and laying his head back in the bushes.

“Oliver,” the man offers in return, and Ephraim acknowledges with a soft grunt.

“Aren’t you supposed to be fighting?” Ephraim asks, and Oliver shrugs, plucking the cigarette from Ephraim’s hand and taking a drag.

“They can assume I’m dead.”

“A deserter, eh?”

“I’ll go back eventually,” he says. “I’ll take you with me. I just need to figure out how to get you there.”

“I don’t think they would take very kindly to a Red Coat coming into their ranks.”

Oliver looks at him out of the corner of his eye. “Who said anything about being a Red Coat?”

Ephraim makes a face, and Oliver snorts. “Would you rather be a slave to the British Army, or would you rather be dead?”

Ephraim sighs, unable to argue with this. Although he knows, logically, that he won’t make it, he supposes he may as well humor the man.

“Fine,” he says. “How will you get me there?”

“I’m not entirely sure,” Oliver admits. “I can’t carry you myself, and I don’t think it would be too wise to let you walk, even with the wound stitched up. Suturing the outside does nothing to help the internal bleeding.”

“So you’re finally understanding.”

“I’ve understood just fine since I first saw you,” Oliver says. “I just refuse to give up that easily.”

“I still don’t understand why.”

“You wouldn’t believe me if I told you.”

Ephraim sighs, too tired to argue. He lets the smell of the man’s cigarette wash over him, lets his eyes close and lets his mind wander.

“I miss London,” he says, and he can hear Oliver shift in the bushes beside him.

“What was it like?”

“It was home,” Ephraim says. “It wasn’t anything fantastic. It was just a small house on the outskirts of the city, my mother and father arguing upstairs, sitting on the roof to escape the noise. Money was tight; it’s the whole reason I joined this stupid army in the first place. So I could send money home to my mom.”

“I joined to protect my brother.”

Ephraim tilts his head in the direction of Oliver’s voice, but doesn’t open his eyes. The man continues anyway.

“He joined as a medic. It’s one of the reasons I think we could save you, if we could just get you to him. I would never tell him, but he’s actually very good.”

“You’d never tell him?” Ephraim’s lips tilt upward, and Oliver scoffs.

“His head does not need to be bigger than it already is. He would never be able to get into his shirt in the morning.”

Ephraim huffs out a laugh. They are both quiet for a while, the snow seeping through Ephraim’s coat and shirt, soaking his back and chilling his spine. It’s almost a reprieve from the heat in his stomach.

“Are we just going to sit here, then, until someone comes walking by?”

“I’m thinking.”

“Okay.”

It’s silent for a bit longer before Oliver stands, stubbing out his cigarette as he does.

“We’ll walk.”

Ephraim opens his eyes, looking up at Oliver in annoyance.

“I thought you said that walking was a bad idea.”

“It’s not the best,” Oliver agrees, “but it’s better than simply laying here and waiting for you to die. Henry’s medic station is only a few miles from here, with the rest of our camp. We might be able to make it.”

Ephraim raises an eyebrow.

“And if we don’t?”

Oliver doesn’t answer.

* * *

 

Ephraim thought that the pain in his stomach couldn’t get worse than when he was shot.

Then Oliver had stitched him up, and he had been proven wrong.

So he told himself, _that’s fine,_ really, because it’s not like it can get any worse than that.

And then Oliver had hauled him to his feet to head to the American camp, and he had been proven wrong for the second time today.

He’s both freezing and on fire. His head feels heavy and so do his limbs, but he keeps himself from falling by leaning a majority of his weight against Oliver, one arm slung over the shorter man’s shoulders as he practically drags Ephraim through the snow. They’re silent as they move, and Ephraim resists the urge to press his hand against his stomach for fear of puking when his fingers touch his own blood-soaked shirt.

“I’ll hav’ta lose m’shirt,” he says, and Oliver looks up at him in question.

“It’s a red coat,” he finishes. “Not even your own brother will work on’a British sol-jer.”

His mind is growing hazy, and Oliver definitely notices, if the grit of his jaw is anything to go by. He pauses, though, shrugging Ephraim out of his coat and switching it out with his own.

“I’ll say I picked it up off a dead man when I lost my own,” he says.

“You kinda did pick it up off’a dead man,” Ephraim huffs, laughing lightly, and Oliver frowns.

“Shut up.”

They continue in silence for a few minutes, the only sound around them the small river to their right and the call of birds above them. Ephraim sighs, and speaks.

“Y’know what I miss th’most?”

“What?” Oliver asks, his voice low, seemingly more focused on keeping Ephraim upright than stopping him from continuing.

“Miss mu’mom’s tea,” he says. Oliver snorts, and Ephraim frowns. “No, really. She made good tea. And we have good tea, over there. And you all j’st. Y’j’st. Threw it all away.”

“We had reasons to,” Oliver says. “They’re complicated and something I never really cared about, but there were reasons. And now we’re here.”

“I wish I wasn’t,” Ephraim says before he can stop himself.

“I wish you weren’t, either,” Oliver says, so softly that Ephraim nearly misses it.

He doesn’t know how much father they make it before he finally gives out. His knees buckle beneath him, and not even Oliver’s weight can support him as he falls forward into the snow. He’s numb, now, and he can barely open his eyes.

Ah.

Finally.

Oliver curses above him, flipping him onto his back and smacking his face lightly.

“Wake up,” he says, a strain in his voice, and Ephraim hums.

“No,” he says. “Won’t make it.”

“You have to.”

“Can’t.”

“You can.”

“Doesn’t matter.”

“It does.”

“Just let me-”

“No.”

“I can’t. You can’t-”

“God _dammit_ , Elias, you don’t get to _do_ this to me _again_ -”

Oliver cuts himself off with a choke, and Ephraim lets his eyes open, half-mast.

“Elias?”

“Nothing. It’s nothing. Just-”

“No,” Ephraim says. “Someone else died, didn’t they?”

Oliver is silent, and Ephraim takes it as confirmation.

“Do I remind you of them?”

He can see Oliver glare at him through the haze in his eyes, can see him take in his appearance before softly reaching out and raking his fingers through Ephraim’s hair.

“In every way.”

It’s a confession that Ephraim isn’t entirely prepared for. Nor is he prepared for the way Oliver’s fingers feel as they scratch softly along his scalp, pushing his hair back and off of his face and out of his eyes. He looks... almost sad, Ephraim thinks, and he wishes that he could do something to help.

“I’m sorry,” is all he can say, and Oliver huffs out a sarcastic laugh.

“You’re not,” he says. “You never have been. You can never remember in time.”

“I’m sorry,” he repeats, because it’s the only thing that feels right to say, and Oliver laughs in near disbelief above him, looking out over the snowbanks, as if avoiding Ephraim’s gaze.

“I hate you,” he says. “I hate this. Every time. I can’t stand this, you know. Losing you like this. Every time it’s different, but it still ends up the same.”

“I don’t-”

“I know you don’t understand,” Oliver says. “And I know you’ll forget when we move on. I know it. But just... let me say this. Let me say this, just this once. Because I refuse to say it again.”

Ephraim stays silent. Partially so Oliver can finish, and partially because he doesn’t have the energy to speak, anymore.

“Stay with me,” Oliver says, and Ephraim feels something in his soul tug forward, a flare of longing igniting in his chest.

“I wish I could,” he whispers. “I’m sorry, Ansel. I wish I could.”

He can’t feel much anymore. He thinks he hears Ansel above him. Or was his name Oliver? Ephraim really can’t remember. He can’t remember much, now, his thoughts hazy, as if cotton were stuffed in his ears and his brain and his throat, and he’s tired, so tired, where is he, where is he-

He thinks about a field of sheep, miles and miles and miles of stars stretched out above him, Oliver beside him - or was he someone else, now? - darkness swallowing the fields across from him, swallowing the stars, swallowing him whole-

-and then there is nothing.


	8. 1815

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "My bed is colder without you to warm it. This is your fault, and I hate you for it."

**On the Wheel to Rebirth**

 

-+-

 

> “I’m sorry.”
> 
> “Shut up. You’ve made your point.”
> 
> “I don’t have contro-”
> 
> “Save it. I don’t care.”

 

-+-

 

**London, 1815**

 

_Friday, November 3_

 

_James-_

 

_It has been three weeks, now, since you left London for Hertfordshire. I do miss you terribly, though I know that you would not say it back. You are stubborn, as we both know, and I will not attempt to change that._

_How is your brother? The last I heard, he was headed off to become a doctor to offer his services as a surgeon for those injured. I wish him well._

_Miss Elizabeth Taylor has stopped by again today. I believe she thinks I am looking to marry, though that is hardly the case. I wish you were here to force her to leave, in the not-so-polite way you tend to do. It would be useful, rather than allowing me to sit through her winded speeches about marriage and its necessity in this day and age. She is not that old, you know. She believes herself to be a spinster, but she still has many years before this is true. Though if this is how she courts a man, I must say that it wouldn’t surprise me if she ended up being right._

_I have been having dreams again._

_They have been stronger lately, leaving little to the imagination. I see you, James, or at least someone very similar. There are slight differences; your hair is longer, your skin is darker, your grin is sharper. But throughout it all, your eyes remain the same piercing hazel that I have known for what seems to be my entire life, though I have only known you for a handful of years._

_That is not all, though._

_Just the other day our family’s housemaid lit a fire in the parlor, for it was absolutely freezing and my father was in the most God-awful mood. You know how he gets, especially when the weather turns. He demanded she put a fire on to warm the sitting room, and so she did -- this is no surprise, either, as it is her job to do so. She did as she was told, and I do not blame her for that._

_However, as soon as the flames were coaxed high enough for me to feel the warmth, something akin to pure fear forced its way into my veins, causing me to cry out and stumble out of reach of the fireplace._

_My father was confused, of course, as was I; there was no reason for me to panic. There was nothing out of place, and the fire was not raging out of control. It had simply been warm enough and I close enough to feel the heat on my skin, working its way up my legs, and for a moment I could have sworn I was set aflame._

_You would have scoffed at me, had you been there. As it was, my father simply barked at me to leave, sending me off into the colder corners of the house away from the warmth of the fire. Though, if I’m being completely honest, I did not mind in the least._

_I can still feel the flames if I close my eyes. I do not know what has come over me, James, but I worry that I cannot be around a fire for fear of another episode. This will make the winter very long, I think._

_I have said it already but I will say it again. I do miss you, James._

_I hope you write._

_Will you visit soon?_

 

_Yours,_

 

_Thomas._

* * *

_Tuesday, November 14_

 

_Thomas-_

 

_You are right. I will not admit that I miss you, as that should be apparent without my having to say. You are a fool if you believe otherwise._

_Henry is fine. He is on his way to becoming a surgeon, as you have heard. He has met a woman there, a nurse, and they seem to be getting along rather well. I will bet you all of my coin that they will be married within a year._

_Miss Taylor is making rounds again, is she? Just let it pass. Soon she will move on to the next young, handsome bachelor and will leave you to your own devices. You are not that interesting, despite what lies she may be filling your already empty head with. She will bore of you eventually, especially if you pay her no mind._

_I, too, have been having more dreams as of late._

_They all lead back to the blue as your eyes, or the flame of your hair, or the crook of your smile as you laugh at something particularly amusing. I hate it, as I hate you._

_On the topic of flames, however, I must say that your manic episode is one of pure delusion. You are right to believe that I would scoff; ~~I would also push you into the flames, if I had my way. They could swallow you whole for all I care. I do not care. I do no~~ you have no reason to be afraid. You are alive, and you are well, and that is all that matters in the end, is it not?_

_I will not say that I miss you, as it would be a waste of my time to state something that you are already aware of._

_Of course, I will write to you. I would do so every day if I could._

_I will attempt to visit when I can. However, you do realize that the roads are open for travel in my direction as well? I have room for you here, should you ever show up on my doorstep._

_However, this would also mean you risk the chance of me slamming the door in your face._

_The choice is yours._

 

_Yours,_

 

_James_

* * *

_Thursday, November 30_

 

_James-_

 

_Perhaps I can make it to you within the next few weeks. I will send this letter, wait for your reply, and if it is a yes, I will be on my way, and should arrive within a few weeks of receiving it._

_Yes or no?_

 

_Yours,_

 

_Thomas._

* * *

_Monday, December 10_

 

_Thomas-_

 

_Yes._

* * *

_Friday, January 12_

 

_James-_

 

_The past three weeks spent at your home in Hertfordshire have been some of the best I can remember having in years._

_The holidays have never been a particularly pleasant time for me or my family, as I’m sure you could understand, what with my mother’s brother having passed around Christmas Time a handful of years ago and my father refusing to treat me like anything less than a nuisance. But with you, I felt the warmth of a family for what may possibly be the first time. I am grateful for the time I was able to spend with you._

_Your brother is an interesting fellow, I must say. Although he looks exactly like you, he acts the exact opposite. He and his nurse are quite the pair, though, don’t you think? She seems to make him more human. I’m glad they were able to make it home for the holidays. I know you would never say it, but I do know that having your brother home safely with you puts your mind at ease._

_I will be honest, James, I have just arrived home and I miss your presence already. It was one that I hadn’t realized was important until it was taken from me. Do you know the feeling? No one here truly understands me the way that you do; their humor does not match yours, either, which is saying something, as it is rare for your humor to show at all._

_Miss Taylor made it over to my house nearly the minute I stepped out of the carriage. She was on me immediately, asking where I had been, why I hadn’t spent the holidays at home, if I had gone to see another woman -- as if that idea had any merit to begin with. I told her in the simplest terms that I had gone to see you, and she visibly relaxed._

_I wonder if she would still do so if she had known that half of the time I spent with you was in your bed?_

_Maybe I’ll mention it to her, and see how quickly she pales._

 

_Yours always._

 

_Thomas._

* * *

_Sunday, January 21_

 

_Thomas-_

 

_Spare me your dramatics. I have told you on more than one occasion that the simplest way to be rid of your father would be to shove him in front of the nearest carriage, but you always refuse my ideas. Let him think of you as a nuisance -- that is exactly what you are, if you ask me._

_My brother is almost as bad as you are, though he at least knows the way that I feel about him. His nurse, as well. I do not wait for his letters the same way I wait for yours. He has promised to return home, and so I expect him to do so. However, I expect nothing from you._

_Let me know if you decide to inform Miss Taylor of our holiday activities. I should like to hear if she faints from the shock._

_My bed is colder without you to warm it. This is your fault, and I hate you for it._

 

_Yours,_

 

_James._

* * *

_Thursday, January 27_

 

_James-_

 

_My father has been getting restless. He has been short with his temper - shorter than usual - and I worry that he may kill my mother one of these days with the anger he exhibits._

_He claims that he wants me to marry, soon, in order to continue our family name. I’ve expressed the fact that I do not want to marry, and he made it clear that I had no real say in the matter. I am attempting to postpone this for as long as possible, though even my mother says that there is no real hope to stop it._

_Sometimes I wonder if it would be easier to run. If I could simply hide away, maybe change my name and disappear entirely. But I cannot leave my mother. She would never survive here if I did. I cannot be the reason for her death._

_I’m hoping that I can find an excuse to visit you again soon, though. At least when I am with you all of these other problems seem to disappear, the way that I wish I could. The only things that matter are the heat of your gaze, the feel of your hands, the warmth of your words as they fall from your lips. It’s all I can do to keep myself from running. The most important reason being the fact that I don’t want to leave you behind._

_I hope you write soon._

 

_Yours always,_

 

_Thomas._

* * *

 

_Friday, February 5_

_Thomas-_

 

_I will only say this once._

_If your father lays a single hand on you, I will kill him where he stands._

_I could not care less about your mother. If you need you, then leave. She can fend for herself just fine. I have met her -- she will not go down without a fight._

_If you run, know that you can always come here._

 

_Yours,_

 

_James._

* * *

 

_Friday, February 24_

 

_James-_

 

_I’m sorry it has taken me so long to write. My father has not allowed me the time to do so, as he has been busy parading me around to multiple families as a way to find a bride. He’s chosen a woman from a wealthy family a few miles north of us. I suppose I should be grateful that it isn’t Miss Taylor. Could you imagine?_

_Her name is Anne, and she is kind enough, I suppose. She is quiet, and keeps to herself, and doesn’t seem much interested in marriage, either. It may work simply for the fact that the both of us can be left to our own devices. And it will get my father to leave me alone._

_My heart aches, though, and I miss you terribly._

_I’m sorry._

 

_Yours,_

 

_Thomas._

* * *

 

_March 7_

_Thomas-_

 

_I debated whether or not to write you at all. I suppose my self-destructive tendencies won out, in the end._

_I have already told you my thoughts. I have already told you that I believe it would be better for you to leave that wretched family. They have done nothing but cause you misery, and you would be best to leave them behind. But in the end, you never listen to my ideas, anyway. Just as it’s always been._

_I hope you are happy with this woman. ~~Although I wish it was Miss Taylor, so you may spend your life miserable~~_

 

_Respectfully,_

_James._


	9. 1924

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Authorities are left wondering how best to tackle the case of John Mayfield and his gang of men that have robbed three banks within the past three weeks along the coast of California."

**On the Wheel to Rebirth**

 

-+-

 

> “Distance will not always save him.”
> 
> “But it will lessen the blow when he goes.”
> 
> “Do you believe that distancing yourself physically will allow you to do so emotionally?”
> 
> A pause.
> 
> “Let me go, Bee. We’re done here.”

 

-+-

 

**Los Angeles, June 21, 1924**

 

**String of Armed Robberies Leaves Authorities Baffled**

 

_Authorities are left wondering how best to tackle the case of John Mayfield and his gang of men that have robbed three banks within the past three weeks along the coast of California._

_Mayfield and his gang have taken nearly 30,000 dollars in cash, leaving behind little to no evidence that could lead the authorities closer to their capture. By the time they arrive on scene, the men have long since been gone, no doubt on their way to their next location._

_The first of such robberies took place on May 15 in Monterey. Witnesses describe Mayfield as approx. 23 years old, five-foot-three, with red hair and blue eyes. They claimed that he entered the bank at nearly twelve noon, let out a whistle, and pulled out a gun, which he proceeded to point toward the roof as he let out a handful of warning shots._

_His men entered next, clearing out the safe and leaving within record time. No one was able to notify the police. They arrived on scene nearly twenty minutes later, though by then Mayfield and his men were long gone._

_There have been two other robberies: one on May 30 in Santa Cruz, and the other on June 3 in Santa Barbara. No one is sure where they aim to strike next_.

* * *

 

Los Angeles has always been on John’s radar, though he had never made it here to visit.

Now that he was here, though, he wanted to take his time. See the sights. Rob some banks. Really enjoy himself before they moved on to the next place.

They had a few cases of booze to drop off at their next stop, but after that, he was free to explore before their next score.

“Who’s taking the next batch?”

Tony leans forward over the seat, folding his arms under his chin and watching John as he drives. John shoots him a glance.

“Me. Maybe you as my second. I don’t trust dumb-fuck over here to do the next run.”

Richard lets out an offended noise in the passenger seat beside him. Will huffs out a laugh in the back seat.

“I can do just fine.”

“Tell that to me when you get back a thousand dollars worth of booze, _Dick_.”

Richard lets out another noise, but doesn’t argue. John watches him fume out of the corner of his eye. From this angle, he can see the birthmark under his left eye that’s a near match to Tony’s. They often joked that the two were long lost brothers; but really, that theory had been shot down once Tony had grown to the size of a small skyscraper, while Richard had barely surpassed John in terms of height.

“Your dad can make that back easy, and you know it.”

John nearly stops the car, but he controls himself enough to keep driving. He pulls out his pocket knife instead, lightning fast and precise as he sticks the blade directly against the soft spot of Richard’s chin. He holds it there, steady, never taking his eyes off the road.

“My father can go rot in Hell,” he says, voice dripping with venom. “We do not run with his gang, nor will we ever. You know this as well as I do; or do I need to call up your brother and ask how he’s doing, too?”

He doesn’t have to look to know that Richard is pale. He can feel his head shake through the way the knife shifts in his hand, and he lets it sit there for another moment before pulling it back, flipping it closed and slipping it into his pocket. 

The Mayfields and the Callows were some of the best known mobs on the east coast. John and Richard had grown up in the heart of them, born and raised on small-time crime and money laundering. And then prohibition had hit, and the two families struck gold -- bootlegging made quite the fortune when done right. The boys had learned from the best.

John, though, had never been the biggest fan of his family. So when the opportunity presented itself to... branch out, as it were, and steal half of his father’s booze and make the trip across America to plant his roots along the west coast, Richard had been inclined to join. They picked up Tony somewhere in Kansas, and Will somewhere in Louisiana and the four of them have been moving since.

They fund themselves on well-made liquor and stolen money, and John has never felt more alive.

“We could start something, you know,” Tony says from the backseat. He had settled himself in, leaning back and folding his arms across his chest. “Our own Family.”

“I’ve had enough of them,” John says. “Enough to last the next few lifetimes.”

“Mobs are where the money is at, though,” Richard points out, and John shrugs.

“Fuck the money,” he says. “I don’t do it for that.”

“Then why?”

John can feel his father’s smile climb its way across his face, and he lifts a hand to smother it.

“Because it’s fun.”

* * *

 

The drop does not go as planned.

No matter how meticulous Tony’s plans may be - and his plans are very - there are some things they just can’t account for.

Such as the fact that one of the buyers was an undercover cop.

“Who lost merchandise now, asshole,” Richard calls from the back of the car, sliding across the seat and slamming into Will as John takes a particularly hard turn. “You didn’t even know it was a set up!”

“Not now, Dick,” John snaps, gritting his teeth and slamming down on the gas. Tony white-knuckle grips the dashboard beside him, though he’s smart enough to keep quiet.

The man they’d met was blonde, angry, and small -- smaller than even John, and that was an accomplishment in itself. If John had been expecting an undercover sting in the first place, this man would have been the last on his list.

Tony had been the one to get out of the car. They always found it was easier that way, when one of them was the one doing the deals and the others hung back in the car in case of this exact situation. 

Once Tony had opened the back of the car, the cop had nodded and told him to start unloading it. Richard had pulled the short straw, and had climbed out to help. Once the crates were unloaded, the cop pulled out his gun, his face neutral as he stared down Tony and Richard and told them that yes, they were under arrest, and yes, so were John and Will, who were still in the car.

Tony had panicked, throwing out a punch and scrambling into the front seat as Richard threw himself in the back. John had taken off immediately after, and he had caught the flash of blonde ducking into his own car as the police had given chase.

“ _Merde_ ,” Will whispers from the back in angry French, and John can agree. He takes another hard left, spinning the wheel and entering a nearby alley that’s barely wide enough for them to fit inside, and cuts the engine, waiting. The silence in the car is heavy, the only sound in the small cab being Tony’s harsh breathing.

The police car whizzes by a few moments later, and suddenly they can all breathe.

“Who the fuck was that?” John asks immediately, whirling on Tony and jabbing him in the chest with his finger. “I thought you said that you knew the contact.”

“I thought I did, too!” Tony exclaims. “It wasn’t the guy that I’d connected with initially, but I figured he was in the car or at his club or something, and had sent some guy on payroll to pick it up instead.”

“You can’t assume shit like that, Tony!”

“I’m sorry!”

“Let’s just go,” Will cuts in, his heavy accent enough to bring John’s focus on his words instead of his own anger. “Maybe the booze will still be there.”

“We can’t risk it,” John says. “They’ll probably circle back to pick it up.”

“Then we leave it,” Will shrugs. “We’ll make the money back on the next bank we hit, anyway. Let’s just head back to the hotel and focus on that.”

John lets out a frustrated sigh, tugging on his hair a few times before starting up the car and heading back to the hotel.

* * *

 

John thinks that maybe, at this point, the universe is just fucking with him.

The bank should have been an easier job than the booze had been. It should have been quick, just like all the others: in, out, run. Three steps.

And yet here they are, stuck on step two.

Step one had been easy. They'd gotten in just fine, letting off a few warning shots into the ceiling of the bank, and everyone had dropped down without argument as they cleared out the bank vault. 

And then on their way out, one man had blocked the door. 

This wouldn't have been a problem, really, save for three very specific factors. 

One: the man had a gun.

This also should not have been a large problem, due to the fact that there were three of them and one of him. But this, instead, had lead to problem two:

The man had grabbed Will. 

He had been fast, jolting out from behind a desk as they made their way to the door of the vault, grabbing Will's arm and twisting hard, wrenching upward and spinning him so that he stood in front of the man like a human shield. Considering their difference in size, it worked a bit too well.

The third problem becomes apparent once John takes the time to look at the man's face. 

"You're the cop from the bust."

He has his own gun raised, though he can't get a clean shot unless he wants to shoot through Will. 

If it had been Richard, he may have thought twice about it. But as it was, Richard was in the car, waiting with the engine running, so he didn't have much of a choice other than to stall.

The cop raises an eyebrow, his lip twitching slightly in what might be amusement.

"Wrong cop."

John frowns.

"No, it was definitely you. I think I would remember the man who made me lose several hundred dollars in liquor."

"I'll tell my brother you said that. He'll be touched."

It hits him suddenly, and he lets out a laugh.

"Twins."

"Genius." 

Tony takes a few steps forward behind him. He adjusts his grip on his gun. 

"So you're not a cop then?" 

"Now, I never said that."

John let's his lips quirk upward. 

"Twin cops. That's interesting."

The cop shrugs. "If you think so."

"What's your name?" 

"Why should I tell you?" 

"What do you want?" 

This takes the officer off guard. He lets out a huff of amusement. 

"I assume asking you to come with me would be out if the question." 

"You assume correctly."

"Alright." The officer pauses for a moment, thinking. And then he says, "put down your guns. Both of you." 

John raises an eyebrow. "How would we know that you won't shoot our friend?" 

The officer grins. "You don't."

Something akin to excitement creeps its way down John's spine. This is the most interesting thing that’s happened on a job in months. It was always too easy, too quick, with the only real hiccups being simple fixes that usually just meant outrunning the cops that weren’t smart enough to keep up. But this? This was different. This was interesting.

This was familiar, somehow.

“Alright,” John echoes. “Deal.”

He lowers his gun, letting it drop to the floor and motioning for Tony to do the same. He looks frustrated with this decision - John swears he can hear him complaining about it already - but they both comply. After a moment the officer nods, leaning back against the door and taking Will with him.

“Leo,” the man says.

“John,” he says back, and Leo lets out a small huff of amusement.

“Mayfield. You think I don’t know who you are?”

John grins. “Well, my face hasn’t made it into any of the papers yet, so I didn’t think you had.”

“Just because your photo hasn’t made it, doesn’t mean a description hasn’t,” Leo points out. “Also, not many people rob banks for a living.”

“They should,” John says, shrugging. “You guys make it so easy.”

“Ah.” Leo smiles. “But that was before you had met me.”

Those words shouldn’t send a bolt of excitement through John, really, and yet they do. He can feel his grin stretch out across his face, and resists the urge to laugh.

“John,” Tony hisses from behind him. “We need to go.”

“And how do you propose we do that?” John asks. “The man has Will.”

“Just go, then,” Will says. “I won’t talk. Just go and I’ll figure it out.”

“Shut up, Will,” John says. “We’re not leaving you.”

Leo’s eyebrows raise in false concern.

“Are you sure?” he asks. “My backup will be here soon. And that means that you won’t get anywhere at all.”

John shrugs. “Then we don’t. But I’m not leaving him behind.”

Leo hums.

“Alright,” he says suddenly. “Here you go, then.”

He shoves Will forward, letting him go. He grins, lazy and uncaring, stuffing his hands into his pockets and leaning against the side of the vault door. John grabs Will by the wrist, yanking him behind him, and looks at Leo, confused.

“Why?”

“Call it repaying a favor,” Leo says, shrugging. “You let me have my fun, so I let you have yours.”

“I wouldn’t classify this as ‘fun’ for you.”

“Not the time I’m talking about.”

John has a lot of questions, but Tony is already shoving him forward, forcing him to move.

“Do you want to come?”

It’s not what he had meant to ask, and judging by the expression that flickers across Leo’s face, it’s not what he was expecting, either. And then the expression is gone, replaced by practiced neutrality, and he shakes his head.

“Can’t,” he says. “For many reasons. Besides, I already played pirate and Crown’s Guard. I don’t think cops and robbers would be much different.”

There’s something familiar in the grin he wears, one that tilts on the edge of manic, but John can’t quite place the feeling. He pushes past Leo with his boys in tow instead, spinning on his heel as they reach the front of the bank.

He gives Leo a two-finger salute, his own grin tilting the edges of his mouth upward.

“Better luck next time,” he says, and Leo’s own smile turns predatory.

“Next time,” he says, the echo of words John swears he’s heard before, “you’re coming with me.”

It takes him a moment longer than it should to back out of the bank, and Tony and Will are already in the back of the car by the time he slides into the passenger seat.

“I never got to see the sights,” John says. “I think we should come back, soon.”

Instead of replying, Richard pulls away from the curb, leaving the bank and the most interesting person John has ever met disappearing in the rear view mirror.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Me, remembering that I need to put Jean in this fic: I've abandoned my boy!!!!!!
> 
> Also did I name Riko Richard just for the opportunity to call him Dick? 
> 
> Yes. 
> 
> I did.
> 
> ((Not my favorite chapter, but the next 2 will make up for it.))
> 
> Thank you for reading


	10. 1969

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> You had reasons a-plenty for going  
> This I know, this I know  
> For the weeds have been steadily growing  
> Please don't go, please don't go

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Due to the fact that I will be unable to update tomorrow and I am impatient as fuck, please take the last 2 chapters now. [throws these at you and runs]
> 
> TW: recreational drug use (just weed, but still)

**On the Wheel to Rebirth**

 

-+-

 

> “You let him go.”
> 
> “He had done the same for me. It was only fair.”
> 
> “A give and a take.”
> 
> “A truth for a truth.”
> 
> “A life for a life.”

 

-+-

 

**Woodstock, 1969**

 

It’s raining again.

Kip doesn’t mind in the least, honestly. There’s something about the rain that makes him feel free; freer than he is, anyway. Freer than he could describe.

Daniel lays out on the grass beside him, letting the rain fall over his face and into the mud around him. He’s soaked - they all are - but he’s grinning, wide and happy and calmer than Kip has seen in years. 

“Pass it here,” he says. His French accent is heavy. He’s comfortable, letting it slip out a bit more than usual. Kip lets out a small laugh.

“It has to cycle around,” he says, nodding at Harvy to shield out the rain as he flicks at his lighter, hoping it will spark. It takes a few tries, but eventually he coaxes out a large enough flame to burn at a corner of the bowl that he’d packed a few minutes earlier. “Harv is next.”

“Harv doesn’t even smoke,” David argues, eyes opening a bit as he lets his head loll to the side, squinting up at Harvy beside him. “He’s a fucking prude.”

“Shut up,” Harvy says, frowning. The birthmark under his left eye crinkles in at the edges. “I smoke.”

“When was the last time you did?”

“Right fucking now,” he says, pulling the pipe out of Kip’s hands and motioning for him to shield out the rain, just as he’d done a minute before. Kip grins, letting out a laugh as Harvy takes a hit and then promptly coughs up a lung a moment later. Daniel laughs, too.

“Nevermind,” he says. “I’ll wait forever if it means watching him choke like that.”

Kip laughs harder as he passes the pipe to Daniel, leaning back in the grass himself and letting the rain roll down his cheeks. He closes his eyes, laying spread-eagle, nodding his head in time to the music coming from the stage. His long hair splays out around him like a halo, the bandanna wrapped around his forehead enough to keep it out of his eyes. 

He sighs as the pleasant hum of the weed works its way into his system, making his head light and his body heavy and his eyes at constant half-mast. He tugs at the hem of his shirt, pulling it over his head without really sitting up, letting the rain fall softly over his stomach and his chest and his soul, wiping away his thoughts and leaving nothing but the moment and the music and his friends.

“Let’s go,” Harv says, standing. “I want to get closer to the stage.”

“Comfy,” Kip shrugs, not bothering to open his eyes.

“Come on,” Daniel says. “It’ll be rad. We can pick up some water on the way or something. I’m fucking thirsty.”

Oh. Now that he says it, yeah, Kip can agree. He  _ is _ thirsty, and being closer to the stage  _ would _ be pretty rad, and the rain is starting to let up a bit anyway so, sure, honestly, yeah, maybe, why not?

They stand slowly and gather their thoughts, shuffling their way forward to a tent a few hundred yards away that’s giving out water. They drink and they move on, laughing and smiling and moving in time to the music; it’s Melanie who’s on stage, now, and Kip sways a bit on his feet, head rolling back on his shoulders as he lets his body move on its own.

He’s content, really, here in this moment. It was worth the drive, worth the crowds, worth abandoning their car halfway down the highway and walking the last three miles just to get to the festival grounds. He looks up at his two stupidly tall friends (seriously, though, why are the two of them so much  _ taller _ than he is?) and thinks to himself, yeah, this is nice.

He spins on his heel in the mud, walking backward, hands running through his hair and scratching at his scalp. He never knows what to do with his hands when he’s high. He just wants to move them. Can’t really sit still.

“Do you remember hearing when Joan Baez is coming on?” He asks, and Daniel shrugs while Harvy looks like he’s thinking.

“Probably later tonight,” he says. “Or maybe tomorrow. I guess we’ll have to see?”

“I guess. I hope it’s not too late because I really want to see- fuck! Sorry, sorry dude, sorry.”

He had run straight into someone’s back, causing the two of them to stumble off balance and slip a bit in the mud. He doesn’t think that the other person fell or anything, but considering Kip had been laying in the mud not ten minutes earlier, he hopes that he didn’t ruin the other person’s shirt.

Then again, they’re at fucking Woodstock. They probably can’t be too pissed about it.

When he turns around, though, he  _ is _ met by someone who looks pretty pissed. The guy is short, his blonde hair curling around his ears, with bracelets wrapped around his forearms so high that they almost reach his elbows. His eyebrows are pulled together in frustration as he takes in Kip standing in front of him, his gaze starting at Kip’s bare feet and working his way up. Once he rests on his eyes, though, the man’s frustration stutters.

“You’ve gotta be fucking with me.”

It’s honestly not what Kip is expecting to hear. So he tilts his head, a bit confused, squinting at the man in question.

“Is it the mud? I’m sorry, man. I can give you one of my shirts if you want. I didn’t mean to fuck yours up.”

The man lets out a small snort before another, taller man comes bounding up behind him, his dark hair reaching past his shoulders, curls wild around his face. He’s wearing a large pair of round, pink sunglasses, and he grins at Kip as he nudges the man he’d bumped into with his elbow.

“Sam!” His smile nearly reaches his ears, and Kip can’t help but smile back. “We lost you! You good? Making friends?” He looks pointedly at Kip, who waves.

“No,” the-man-who-is-probably-named-Sam says. “He was just going.”

“Oh, man,” Kip says, tugging at his hair a bit as he takes a step forward. “It’s fine, really. Just take one of my shirts, yeah? I feel really bad about messin’ yours up.”

“It’s fine,” Sam says, but his friend waves a hand in front of his face.

“No, no! Really. If this man here wants to give you his shirt, Sam, then who are you to deny him that?”

Sam’s eyes narrow.

“My shirt is fine, Marc. Leave it alone.”

“Ignore my cousin,” the man says, extending a hand to Kip, who shakes it. “I’m Marc. This here is Sam. He’s kind of a grump. His brother Jesse isn’t too much better, though. He should be around here somewhere.”

“Don’t tell me you lost him,” Sam says, and Marc shakes his head quickly.

“No, no! He was just behind m- there! There he is! Jesse! Hey!”

The man in question is pushing his way through a crowd of people a few feet behind them. He stumbles forward, a bit annoyed but seemingly fine, and stops beside his brother.

Oh.

They’re twins.

Either that, or that weed was laced with something that Kip wasn’t aware of.

But he’s leaning toward the former.

“I’m Kip,” he says, ignoring his own thoughts. “This is Daniel, and this is Harv.”

“Wanna smoke a joint?”

“Daniel, dude, just-”

“What? Harv, it’s manners. It’s  _ polite _ .”

“Dude, seriously, you can’t just do that. You don’t even know if these guys smoke.”

“Well? Do they?”

* * *

 

It turns out that these guys do, in fact, smoke.

Marc seemed offended at the thought of refusing free weed, so here they are, a joint and a half higher and curled up on a blanket the twins had brought with them. Marc was on the grass to the left Kip and Sam with Daniel, talking about who-knows-what, while Harv and Jesse sleep to the right.

Kip pulls his knees to his chest, closing his eyes and resting his cheek on his knee while Joan Baez plays on stage. He hums along quietly, losing himself in the music.

His mind is scattered but whole, fragments that are taped together by still-firing synapses that refuse to let go. He’s floating, drifting, his body unable to feel the ground below him as his mind moves forward and backward and left and right behind his eyelids, like he’s wandering through the darkness of a field that spreads out for miles, on and on and on until he can’t see the edge of it anymore.

And then suddenly he can.

A wall, barely there but painted black, like the backdrop of a painting that has to end eventually. He could knock on it, if he reached out, but he doesn’t, letting his mind step back instead, letting his mind step back and back and back until he’s at a fence, here, in the middle of the field, surrounded by sheep and stars and sheep and stars that go for miles and miles and miles and-

-and there is a boy. His age. With hazel eyes and a voice like honey that pushes him off of the fence, off of the ledge, off of a cliff until he’s falling, falling, falling, falling-

He opens his eyes to find Sam staring at him, his own hazel eyes flashing with interest as Kip blinks once, twice, three times, before he speaks.

“What was in that weed?”

The corners of Sam’s mouth twitch, like he’s trying to force down a smile.

“Nothing you don’t already know about,” he says. He leans back, pulling a packet of cigarettes out of his front left pocket and a dark red lighter out of his right. “Why, you trippin’ too hard or something?”

“Or something,” Kip says.

Sam hums, lighting his cigarette and taking a long drag. His eyes are half-lidded, and Kip is sure his own are, too. His mind is still fuzzy, but he feels more alert now that his eyes are at least partially open. Now that he can see.

He lets the smell of Sam’s cigarettes wash over him, and he swears he can feel snow creeping down his spine.

“Do you ever have the sense of deja vu?”

He asks it quietly, barely able to be heard over Joan Baez blasting over the speakers, but Sam catches it, looking at him out of the corner of his eye for a long moment before answering.

“You have no idea.”

“It’s weird,” Kip says. “Like it’s... Supposed to make sense, but it doesn’t. Like I’ve already lived this, but I haven’t. You know?” 

This time, Sam lets his smile work its way across his face.

“I know.”

They’re quiet for a long time, the music the only thing that travels through them.

 

_ Are you going away with no word of farewell? _

_ Will there be not a trace left behind? _

_ I could have loved you better _

_ Didn't mean to be unkind _

_ You know that was the last thing on my mind _

 

Kip lets his cheek rest against his knees again, watching Sam as he smokes. Sam, though, is watching the stage, an unreadable expression on his face.

“Out of all of the people here,” he says, after a long moment. “Five hundred thousand people. That’s half a million, you know.”

“I do know.”

“Half a million people,” he repeats, almost to himself. “And of all the people to ruin my shirt, it had to be you.”

Kip frowns a bit, not really understanding where he was going with this.

“I’m sorry again about your shirt,” he says, and Sam scoffs.

“That’s not the problem.”

“Then what is?”

Sam shoots him a look out of the corner of his eye.

“I can’t get rid of you.”

Kip smiles, raising an eyebrow.

“You could just tell me to leave, you know.”

Sam is quiet again, taking another long drag of his cigarette.

“I don’t know if I want to.”

 

_ You had reasons a-plenty for going _

_ This I know, this I know _

_ For the weeds have been steadily growing _

_ Please don't go, please don't go _

 

They fall into another comfortable silence, shoulders pressed together, their hearts an endless abyss that stretches on like the fields in Kip’s dreams.

* * *

 

“They were nice people,” Daniel says from his seat in the back of the car. He’s spread out, head hanging back against the seat, staring at the roof of the car. “Did you get their phone number?”

“No,” Kip says. “He said they don’t have a phone.”

“Well that’s a shame.” Daniel clicks his tongue. Harvy is too busy sleeping to respond; his cheek sticks to the window beside him. “I would have liked to have seen them again.”

“Yeah,” Kip says, his grip tightening on the steering wheel. “Me too.”

* * *

 

_ Are you going away with no word of farewell? _

_ Will there be not a trace left behind? _

_ I could have loved you better _

_ Didn't mean to be unkind _

_ You know that was the last thing on my mind _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> it's fuckin Woodstock babey
> 
> The song in question is The Last Thing On My Mind my Joan Baez


	11. present

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Andrew Minyard has a perfect memory.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "Alright Gio, keep it short and sweet."
> 
> [proceeds to write 22 pages of nonsense]

**On the Wheel to Rebirth**

 

-+-

 

> “Why did you lie?”
> 
> “Three days was enough. Three days was plenty. It was nice, and that was all I needed.”
> 
> “Any more would have meant letting him in.”
> 
> “Any more would have meant letting him die on me. Again.”
> 
> A pause.
> 
> “Let’s go, Bee. Send me to the next one.”
> 
> “Ah, but I have something to say.
> 
> Another pause. Patient. Waiting.
> 
> “This is the last time.”
> 
> “Excuse me?”
> 
> “Your last time. Your last chance. The last opportunity to make things right.”
> 
> “What is that supposed to mean?”
> 
> “It means exactly what it sounds like. This is the last cycle.”
> 
> “Wait-”
> 
> “Good luck.”

 

-+-

 

**Palmetto, South Carolina, present day**

 

Andrew Minyard has a perfect memory.

He can remember anything and everything. He has never had a problem with this. With memorizing text immediately after reading it, with remembering directions after being told a single time, with recognizing names and faces after meeting someone once-

-with remembering details that span decades, stretched out over life after life after life.

Andrew Minyard has a perfect memory.

He can remember every single way Neil Josten has died.

And as he stands here, crouched above a boy doubled over from a hit to the stomach by a very heavy racquet, disguised by dark hair and muddy contacts but still very much him, very much Christopher, very much Elias, very much Ephraim and Thomas and John and Kip, they all come flooding back.

* * *

Andrew hates the drugs.

“This isn’t Woodstock anymore _ , _ ” he tells Bee, who sits across from him in her perfectly normal human office, smiling and sipping on perfectly normal human hot cocoa that no other-worldly-being has any business enjoying so much. “These aren’t as fun.”

“I know _ , _ ” she says, and her expression actually falls a bit flat at that. It’s weird, he thinks, seeing Bee with a face. He’s used to nothingness. Used to abstract thoughts and barely-there feelings, Bee being everywhere and nowhere and under his skin when he had no skin at all; to see her like this has been a bit jarring. But he’s learning. And she is patient. She always was. He supposes that someone with no concept of time can’t exactly feel it’s being wasted.

“Why are you here, if not to help me?” he asks, the mania bubbling up inside of him. He can’t stop grinning. Can’t stop laughing. Can’t stop living living living feeling feeling  _ feeling _ too much too much not enough not enough not at all. 

“Just kill me now, reset it all, let me wander off into the abyss forever and ever and let me skip all the formalities and the not-fun drugs because I had my fun Bee, had it had it had it. I’ve had it. I’m done.”

Bee, to her credit, sits through his rants with great understanding. She simply takes another sip of her cocoa, watches him until he is finished, and then speaks.

“He’s here now, isn’t he?”

Andrew hums.

“Will you be making attempts to reach him?”

“Why should I?” Andrew asks, and really, why should he?

“Why not?”

“Because he is a liar in this life,” Andrew says, his knife-sharp smile cutting straight through his skin and making him bleed. Or maybe he’s imagining that. Maybe he imagined all of it. Blood on snow, blood on a pyre, blood on the Roanoke colony that had long been abandoned. Who knows. Who knows who knows what’s real what’s not. Certainly not Andrew.

“He is a liar,” he repeats. “And I do not appreciate it. I do not know what he is running from. Little rabbit, running running running, here one moment gone the next. Just like always. Just like the others. He’ll be gone, Bee, and I cannot do that again.”

Andrew usually doesn’t talk this much, does he? He can’t remember. These drugs make him fuzzy. Bee makes him feel understood. It’s dangerous territory, here with Bee.

“I think we’re done here,” he says in way of escape, and if Bee knows that, she makes no efforts to stop it when he stands.

* * *

He takes Neil to Eden’s.

Of course he does. There’s no way he wouldn’t. Just because he has met Neil before (and before and before and before and befo-) doesn’t mean that he has met him now. He does not know Neil Josten. He does not know what he’s hiding.

He does know, though, the relief that crashes through him at the sight of the blue of Neil’s eyes. He knows the familiar feeling of longing, the thought that this is it, this is  _ him _ -

He smothers that thought down, refusing to acknowledge what he knows cannot be his.

So he takes Neil to Eden’s, has Roland spike his drink, watches Neil watch the crowds with an unease that Andrew finds interesting.

_ This isn’t Woodstock, _ he had told Bee. And it seems Neil would be inclined to agree.

And once he pays a waiter to knock him unconscious after he takes Andrew’s drugs, Andrew nearly laughs.

* * *

“My father was a gopher for a group who did business with the Moriyamas,” Neil says to him in Wymack’s living room, and Andrew almost believes it.

Almost.

He’s not stupid, not by any means. Riko has been a dick in every life, and Neil’s father was no better.

Andrew wouldn’t be fooled so easily.

But he takes Neil’s half-truths for what they are, and though every bit of his head says  _ go go go go go go _ , the corner of his heart that is still left beating whispers  _ stay _ , and Andrew decides to listen.

“Keep it if you can,” he says, and he isn’t sure exactly who the sentence is meant for. “You and I both know it won’t last long.”

* * *

Andrew finds Riko spitting angry Japanese and throwing elbows after Kathy’s show. Sets himself between an idiotic Neil and a terrified Kevin. Thinks back to a bar in Salem, thinks back to hissing threats and investigations that lead to deaths. Of Riko’s face, a few hundred years earlier, still as smug as it is now.

“Don’t touch my things,” Andrew says, echoing the boy that had thrown himself on a pyre to save him, flashing Riko a grin that mirrors the one Elias had given so long ago. He wonders if Hiram remembers, somewhere deep inside of Riko’s inflated ego. “I don’t like to share.”

He places himself between a fuming Riko and a retreating Neil, and he can’t shake the memory of a courthouse in Salem, of roles reversed, of Elias placing himself between Andrew and death and not thinking twice.

Not here.

Not now.

Not this time.

* * *

“Here’s some honesty,” Neil says on their second visit to Eden’s, voice sharp and eyes sharper. “I don’t like you, and I don’t trust you.”

Andrew almost laughs.

Almost.

“It’s mutual,” he says instead. “That doesn’t change anything.”

* * *

When Higgins comes calling, Andrew runs through every life he’s ever lived, and wonder if any had been as twisted as this one.

* * *

“Kevin, Kevin,” Andrew sings, back against the lockers and a knife pointed at Kevin’s chest. “You’ll start having more success when you ask for things you can actually have.”

“I can have this,” Kevin spits back. “You’re just being stupid.”

Andrew thinks about life, death, and everything in between. Thinks about Neil, and all of the lives he’s lived. All of the times he’s left. All of the times he’s died.

All of the times Andrew has been left utterly alone.

Andrew is grinning, humming, buzzing with an energy that needs to be released.

He laughs instead, sheathing his knife after wiping it off on his armband.

“I guess we’ll see,” he says, voice full of fake-cheer. “But don’t say I didn’t warn you!”

* * *

“Your parents are dead,” Andrew says one night in an empty locker room, Neil straddling a bench in front of him, phone pressed to his ear. “You are not fine, and nothing is going to be okay.”

_ It never has been. _

“This is not news to you.”

_ To me. _

“But from now until May you are still Neil Josten and I am still the man who said he would keep you alive.”

_ I will keep you alive. _

_ I will keep you alive. _

_ I will keep you alive. _

_ This time, I will. _

* * *

“You look familiar,” Jean Moreau says to Neil from across a banquet table. Andrew nearly laughs, though his too-wide smile widens a bit more.

_ Of course he does _ , he thinks, o _ f course of course. After robbing banks and smuggling booze across America, one would be well acquainted. You know. You know but you don’t and I do. I do I do I do. _

“If you watched Kathy’s show you saw me there,” Neil says, and oh, his face is very green, isn’t it? That’s worry. The boy is worried. A worried rabbit, ready to run.

“Ah, you are right,” Jean says. “That must be it. What was your name again? Alex? Stefan? Chris?”

_ Two for three, _ Andrew thinks.  _ Not too bad, not too bad. _

He lets the banter go back and forth like a tennis match before he decides to throw his own racquet at the ball.

“Jean,” he says, voice singing, up and down and up and down with every word he says. “Hey, Jean. Jean Valjean. Hey. Hey. Hello.”

He holds out a hand and Jean takes it. Andrew squeezes so tightly that he thinks Jean’s long, thin, bone-white fingers may just break. He swears he can feel them creaking. Ah. Good.

“I’m Andrew,” he says, his impossible grin stretching impossibly wider. “We haven’t met.”

_ In this life _ goes unsaid.

“For which I am grateful,” Jean says, and oh, Andrew thinks he likes Daniel better. Thinks maybe the weed and the booze and the dancing really made Jean cooler. Made him a real cool guy. Made him... tolerable. Tolerable? Certainly more willing to share. Willing to  _ hang _ . Willing to be  _ polite _ and- oh. He was talking this whole time, wasn’t he?

Too bad, so sad, Andrew wasn’t listening.

He continues to not listen, too, until Jean turns to him, eyes glinting under the ridiculous lighting in this ridiculous court-turned-banquet hall.

“You won’t stay,” he’s saying, and Andrew tilts his head a bit. “Face the facts. Your pet is and always will be a dead weight. It’s time to-”

“What?” Andrew turns, wide-eyed, to look at Kevin. He’s enjoying himself, really he is, simply  _ living _ for the look of frustration on Jean’s already-frustrating-to-look-at face. “You have a pet and you never told us? Where do you keep it, Kevin?”

“Don’t interrupt me, Doe.”

Ah.

There it is.

Andrew’s smile turns sharp.

“Oh, points for trying, but save your breath. Here’s a tip for you, okay? You can’t cut down someone who’s already in the gutter. You just waste your time and mine.”

Andrew Minyard has lived a thousand lives and died a thousand deaths.

He has been beheaded in Roman coliseums and torn apart by hurricanes in the Caribbean Sea.

It will take more than a name to make him flinch.

It does, however, seem to work on Neil, who spends the next ten minutes panicking alongside Kevin.

When they get placed at their new table, across from a harmless team full of harmless nobodies, Andrew leans in his chair so far backward that it almost tips over.

“I told you so,” he sings to Neil, his grin cutting into his cheekbones.

It shouldn’t be too long now.

* * *

Neil convinces everyone to go to Eden’s on Halloween.

It’s stupid. He’s stupid. Andrew hates him.

What he doesn’t entirely hate, though, is the picture that Bee sends him; no otherworldly being should look this delighted to dress up in a cheap human Halloween costume, regardless of wordplay.

Maybe her sense of humor isn’t completely hopeless, after all.

* * *

Andrew Minyard has a perfect memory.

He has lived a thousand lives and died a thousand deaths.

Here, though, in a small room in the upstairs of his uncle’s home, staring down his brother’s blood-soaked face and Neil’s impassive gaze, the echoes of his laughter fading into the cracks in the walls, he wonders if any of them can compare to this.

* * *

“Trust you?” Andrew asks in the kitchen of his home in Columbia. Bee stands behind him, watching, listening, but never speaking. Never when she isn’t needed to. Neil is unflinching in front of him. “You lie and lie and lie, and you think I’ll trust you with his life?”

_ I can barely trust you with your own _ goes unsaid in the silence around them. But Bee hears it just fine.

“Then don’t trust ‘Neil’,” he says. “Trust me.”

“Oh, but who are you?”  _ This time.  _ “Do you have a name?”  _ What is it now? _

“If you need one, call me Abram.”

And Andrew almost laughs. He really almost does, this time.

He almost laughs as his mind flashes back to a field, the night sky above them, the grass soft below them, the sheep laid out in front of them, the warmth of their bodies between them, their now-middle names coming back to haunt them-

_ “I am many things, Abram. But I am not a liar.” _

But Neil is.

Neil is, he is, he is, and he proves it when he lets Andrew feel his scars, a roadmap on his skin, a tale woven since the beginning of time that seemed to only appear now, hundreds and hundreds and millions of years later on a single boy that has woven himself so deeply in Andrew’s red-string-fate that there’s simply no way to untangle him unless Andrew cuts him out.

And he hasn’t decided, yet, if that’s what he wants to do.

“It’ll have to do, won’t it?” Andrew says instead, and Bee hums thoughtfully behind him.

* * *

“Did I break my promise,” Andrew asks on the roof of Fox Tower, “or were you keeping yours?”

“Neither,” Neil responds. “I spent Christmas at Evermore.”

And there it is.

There is the familiar weight of failure digging itself deep into Andrew’s bones. The reminder that, no, this is not something that he can control. That his fate has been set since the beginning of time; that no matter how careful he is, Neil will always end up hurt or gone or dead in the end.

_ Or worse, _ he thinks as he rips off the bandage on Neil’s cheekbone.  _ He will be chained. _

He claps a hand over Neil’s mouth, next, when he tries to tell him of his attempt to keep Andrew safe. As if he hasn’t done that a million other times in a million other lives under a million other names.

“Do not make the mistake of thinking I need your protection,” he says, anger flashing deep in his bones. It nearly sets him on fire the way it had Elias.

“I had to try,” Neil says. “If I had the chance to stop it but did nothing, how could I face you again? How could I live with myself?”

And suddenly they are in a jail in Salem, with Andrew’s hands wrapped around a cell door so tightly he thinks they might split open.

_ “I wouldn’t be able to live with myself if it had been you.” _

_ “And I am supposed to do so instead?” _

“Your crumbling psyche is your problem, not mine,” Andrew says, though he isn’t sure how put-together his own mind is at this point, either. “I said I would keep you alive this year. You make it infinitely more difficult for me when you actively try and get yourself killed.”

“You spend all this time watching our backs,” Neil says. “Who’s watching yours? And don’t say you are, because you and I both know that you take shit care of yourself.”

_ Because there’s no point _ , Andrew doesn’t say.  _ Because you will die anyway, eventually. And if you won’t, I will, and everything will turn to dust in the end. There is no point to this, so let me keep you while I can. _

“You have a hearing problem,” Andrew says instead. “Too many balls to the helmet, perhaps. Can you read lips?” He leans in closer, pointing at his own mouth. “The next time someone comes for you, stand down and let me deal with it. Do you understand?”

“If it means losing you, then no,” Neil says, and Andrew feels his world tilt under his feet.

This isn’t supposed to happen. It isn’t supposed to be this way. It  _ can’t _ be this way; it’s too much, it’s too much, it’s too much. His heart feels as though it’s bleeding out in front of him, desperately trying to claw its way from his chest because the thought of feeling like this, of letting this happen, is  _ too much _ .

“I hate you,” Andrew says, just as he has in every life, and he means it, from his very core. He takes a final drag from his cigarette before he flicks it off the roof. “You were supposed to be a side effect of the drugs.”

And he was; this all was. There was no way that this was real. This had to have been some fucked up fever dream that his meds had put him through. There was no way it had happened, no way it was true. To go through these lives, to deal with Neil after Neil and death after death, to remember every moment of every life he has ever had to live, there was no way he could believe it.

The meds had made him fuzzy. They had made him buzz with energy he didn’t want to have. They made him numb, made him tired, made him wired made him manic made him crash. He couldn’t tell, on the meds, what was real and what was not. He had taken things at face value: what was here, and what was not.

And even then, sometimes it was impossible to tell.

And then Neil had come, but had he really? Was it Neil? Or was it Andrew’s ridiculously drugged-up brain wishing for someone like him, wishing for something that he would never be able to have one last time. Was it real? Was it some sick joke? How was he supposed to tell?

And so he had gone and gotten off of the drugs. And here Neil is, sitting in front of him, whole - mostly - and insistent, still not gone even though he has every reason to be.

“I’m not a hallucination,” Neil says, and Andrew wants to scream. Wants to grab him by the shirt collar and shake him until he makes sense.

“You are a pipe dream,” he says instead, because it is the most truthful statement he can think of in this moment.

“You still have my keys,” Neil reminds him, and Andrew digs them out of his pocket, prying his car key off and tossing the rest to the ground below.

“Not anymore,” he says.

And as Neil looks up at him from the sidewalk below, Andrew’s cigarette hanging precariously from his lips, two fingers to his temple in mock-salute, Andrew is taken back to a bank vault in Los Angeles, and he thinks that maybe it all was real, after all, if the memories still come when he’s nice and clean and sober.

He makes his way off of the roof, emotions in complete turmoil.

* * *

As Neil lets him trace the scars that litter his torso, he feels more grounded than he has in years.

Maybe, he thinks,  _ this _ Neil simply refuses to die.

* * *

“You hate me, remember?” Neil asks him, squeezed into a back booth at Eden’s.

“Every inch of you,” Andrew echoes, phantom memories of ships and ocean waves crashing against the edges of his mind. “That doesn’t mean I wouldn’t blow you.”

“You like me,” Neil says, eyes wide and shell-shocked.

“I hate you,” Andrew corrects him, but Neil ignores him.

“You never said anything.”

“Why should I have?” Andrew asks, lifting one shoulder in a shrug. “Nothing will come of it.”

“Nothing,” Neil echoes.

“I am self-destructive,” Andrew says. “Not stupid.”

He thinks about the one thing that he has never been allowed to have, and never will be.

“I know better.”

* * *

“I am not trying to die,” Neil says in the lounge one night. “This is how I stay alive.”

“It is a court,” Andrew says.

“You know what I mean.”

“I don’t.”

“Because you don’t have anything, do you?” Neil asks. “Nothing gets to you like that. Nothing gets under your skin.”

_ I am nothing, _ Elias had whispered in a cell in Salem.

_ I am nothing, _ Neil had whispered in an apartment in Palmetto.

_ I want nothing _ , his mind whispers in traitorous glee.

“He catches on at last,” his mouth says out loud. “It only took him half a year.”

“What are you afraid of?”

Andrew thinks back to the beginning of time. To the first time. To the worst of them.

“Heights,” he says, and he can practically feel the rocks that broke his neck in that first life, for the first time, the cycle that started it all.

“Andrew,” Neil says, unbelieving.

“If you make Kevin come looking for you, you will regret it.”

Neil finally leaves, and Andrew spends the next hour trying to push the feeling of falling from his mind.

* * *

“You don’t look like a Nathan,” Andrew says in an airport, attempting to distract himself from the prospect of flying.

“I’m not,” Neil says, spitting out the words like poison. “I’m Nathaniel.”

_ Nathaniel _ , Andrew’s mind considers.

He decides that out of all of Neil’s names, this is the one that he hates the most.

* * *

“I hate you,” Andrew says on the top of Fox Tower.

“Ninety percent of the time you don’t,” Neil says back.

“Ninety percent of the time I don’t want to kill you,” Andrew corrects. “I always hate you.”

“Every time you say that I believe you a little less.”

“No one asked you,” Andrew says, and something inside of him snaps.

He leans in, catching Neil’s face in his hands and pulling him closer.

He had kissed Neil before: once in Egypt, twice in New York, one time in Ireland and three times in California. He had kissed him over and over and over again in London; it had been stolen kisses behind buildings and hidden touches in the dark of his bedroom and whispered nothings to one another when no one else was near. He had taken Neil to bed - though his name was different then - and he had worshipped every silent moment that they could afford to hide together, the excitement of something forbidden enough to keep them returning for more.

But this.

This is something else entirely.

This feels like uncharted territory through wilderness that Andrew has never seen before. This feels like his heart bursting from his ribcage, screaming that this is it, this is it, this is  _ it- _

This is a plea, a promise, a desperate last attempt to have what he could never hope to keep.

He kisses Neil as if it is the last time, as if the moment he walks away he will disappear forever. And maybe he will; Andrew has seen it done before. It has happened over and over and over and he is so tired, so drained, so ready to give up, but when he kisses Neil it’s as if he is ignited with something new, something more, something  _ whole _ .

He can have this.

He can have this.

Neil reaches out a hand, making it halfway to Andrew’s jaw before he stops, letting his fingers fall to tangle in Andrew’s sweater sleeve instead.

Everything comes to a stop.

Andrew leans back, breathing heavy, staring into Neil’s frantic, questioning eyes, and remembers.

He remembers that he does not deserve this.

“Tell me no,” he says, and Neil only stares back.

“Let go,” he continues, peeling Neil’s fingers from his sleeve. “I am not doing this with you right now.”

He goes to smoke, making it through a single drag of a new cigarette before he smashes it out, lighting another anyway. He isn’t sure what to do with himself. His mind is reeling, spinning, tilting out from under him and he can do nothing about it.

A million thoughts from a million lives are buzzing in the back of his skull, and he can’t silent them as they all demand to be heard. Andrew tucks his knees to his chest, staring out over the parking lot, shielding himself from the cold and from Neil and from himself.

“Why not?” Neil asks, much too late, and Andrew almost scoffs.

“Because you are too stupid to tell me no,” he says.

_ Because you are not real. _

_ Because you cannot be kept. _

_ Because you will run. _

_ Because you will die. _

_ Because you always die. _

_ Because I can do nothing to stop it. _

“Hey,” Neil says later, after an end to a conversation and a long, stretching silence. “Thank you.”

“Go away before I push you off the side,” Andrew says, gripping his legs a bit tighter.

“Do it,” Neil says. “I’d drag you down with me.”

_ You already have _ , Andrew thinks, though he remains silent as Neil leaves the roof.

* * *

“Why do you think you can’t have this?”

Bee shifts in her seat a bit, watching him with interest over her mug of cocoa. Andrew shrugs, taking the time to adjust himself as well, tucking his feet beneath him on the couch. He wedges the tips of his shoes in between the cushions.

“When have I ever been allowed to?”

Bee hums thoughtfully, blinking a few times, and Andrew swears they flicker from brown to green in the light.

“As I’ve told you,” she says, “this is the last run. You don’t have much to lose by those standards, then, do you?”

“It’s the opposite, actually,” Andrew says. “I have more to lose now than ever.”

“Ah.” Bee nods sagely, as if she’s realizing this for the first time. “I suppose humans do have a way of putting weight on finality.”

“Mainly due to the fact that it is just that: final.”

“I suppose I cannot understand that the way you do,” Bee says. “I apologize.”

“I never expected an ethereal being to understand the inner workings of the human psyche,” Andrew shrugs, and Bee lets out a small laugh.

“Why does it scare you, letting him in?”

“I told you. I have much more to lose.”

“And that is-?”

“If he dies,” Andrew says, “then the cycle does not reset. I’ve tried this dozens of times, Bee. I’ve lived through every possible scenario. I’ve attempted to save him one too many times. It never works. He dies, I die, the wheel continues to turn. But now-” Andrew takes a breath, and Bee takes a sip of cocoa. “Now, the wheel has stopped. You tell me that this is it. If I make a mistake, he could die. If I slip up, he could run. If I blink, he could be gone. And there’s no going back, this time. There’s no reset.”

“This seems to be weighing on you.”

“I’m tired, Bee.”

“I know.”

“I don’t see the point, really, in continuing. In letting this play out. This life, along with all of the others I’ve lived, have made it perfectly clear that I do not deserve him. I can’t.”

“I know for a fact that you deserve this,” Bee says. “You deserve him. You deserve happiness.”

“Then why, Bee?” Andrew asks. “Why go through all of the things I’ve been through?”

Bee pauses a moment.

“That I cannot answer,” she says. “I do not know.”

“Come to me when you have something, then,” Andrew says, and stands up to leave.

* * *

"Everything about you is a bad idea,” Andrew says in the dorms the next day. Neil looks at him like he already knows this.

“I’m still waiting for an answer,” he says in way of response.

“I’m still waiting on a yes or no I actually believe,” Andrew says back, and Neil doesn’t hesitate.

“Yes,” he says, leaning in, stopping just shy of Andrew’s lips.

Andrew knows, logically, that this is a bad idea. He is attached in every sense of the word, though he is trying so hard not to be. He thinks that maybe this is enough; Neil relaxed and pliant beneath him, breathing his air and tasting his skin and listening to the small noises that can be drawn from his throat, but Andrew knows that he’s skating on a very thin line. He’s in dangerous territory, and he isn’t quite sure how to escape.

“It’s fine if you hate me,” Neil says between breaths, and Andrew can practically feel the words tracing his lips.

“Good,” he says. “Because I do.”

Neil reaches up, stops himself, lets his hand be pinned to the carpet beneath him by Andrew’s heavy hands.

“Stay,” he whispers, leaning in to kiss him, and it is both an order and a plea.

He kisses him again, and again and again, committing every moment to memory, his perfect memory, his  _ stupid _ memory that he knows will be both a blessing and an absolute curse once Neil leaves.

* * *

“We won,” Neil says one night at Abby’s. “Would it kill you to let something in?”

“It almost did last time,” Andrew says, referring to this lifetime.

_ And it already has before, _ he thinks, referring to all of the others.

* * *

“You have a problem,” Andrew says on the roof, because that’s where they always end up, isn’t it? “You only invest your time and energy into worthless pursuits.”

“This,” Neil motions between the two of them, “isn’t worthless.”

“There is no ‘this’,” Andrew argues. “This is nothing.”

This cannot be something. This is  _ not _ something. This is Andrew biding his time, taking what he can get before it all crumbles down around him.

“I am nothing,” Neil says, and for a moment Andrew is in Salem once again. He blinks, twice, to shake the image from his mind. “And as you’ve always said, you want nothing.”

Andrew grits his teeth, furious at the fact that his own words have been thrown back at him, and even more furious that Neil is right.

“That’s a first,” Neil continues after a moment of silence. “Do I get a prize for shutting you up?”

“A quick death,” Andrew says ironically. “I’ve already decided where to hide your body.”   


“Six feet under?” Neil guesses, and Andrew nearly screams.

“Stop talking,” he says, and kisses Neil silent instead.

* * *

“Thank you,” Neil says in the Binghamton locker room, and it sounds like a goodbye. “You were amazing.”

* * *

Andrew’s mind is a mess of thoughts.

They’re scrambled, screaming, pleading thoughts that thrash at the inside of his skull and beg to be sorted out.

But he can’t. He can’t think. He can’t feel, can’t breathe, can’t move, can’t-

Fuck.

Fuck.

_ Fuck. _

Memories are flooding him from every angle. Pasts overlapping and colliding with the present, the only thought he can decipher being a continuous  _ gone gone gone gone gone- _

Neil was gone.

He was gone.

He was gone.

It took exactly eight minutes for Andrew to set his mind straight. It took two more for him to begin thinking coherent thoughts. It took three more to reach the far end of the stadium, where he found Neil’s sports bag with his phone tucked inside.

It took him thirty seconds more to decide that he would tear Binghamton apart, brick by brick, the way he had done at Roanoke.

And ah, yes, that was what it is, isn’t it? The reason this feels so familiar.

The sick flash of failure comes creeping back again, hot on the tail of memories of Roanoke; of months on a disgusting excuse for a boat, of the promise he’d given Christopher, of making it back to the colonies, of making it home, only to find it empty, only to not find Christopher at all-

He smothers his thoughts as he makes it to the bus.

“Andrew,” Renee asks, “what’s wro-”

“Neil is gone.”

This starts a flurry of questions that Andrew doesn’t have the patience for. He looks at Renee, his gaze sharp and steady, and she stares back, her own eyes cold.

“Where have you checked?”

“Everywhere.”

Renee nods, her eyes falling to the bag slung over Andrew’s shoulder. He shrugs it off, tossing it to her, and she catches it with one hand. She rifles through it, pulling out Neil’s phone, flipping it open with ease and scrolling through his recent calls. She hums, indicating she’s found something, turning the phone in her hand and showing the screen to Andrew.

“From tonight. Immediately after the game.”

It’s a number he doesn’t recognize, but judging by the strangled noise that Kevin makes behind him, it is something that he  _ does _ .

Andrew turns slowly, locking eyes with Kevin over the back of the seat.

“Who is it.”

Kevin shakes his head, eyes wide, face white.

“If he is getting called from that number, then he is dead. He is dead already, there is no way-”

Andrew doesn’t register he is moving until after he has already scrambled over the back of the seat, his hand closing around Kevin’s throat as he slams him against the bus window.

“Where is he.”

He’s snarling as three of the others pull him off, thrashing in their grip in an attempt to get back to Kevin. He knows, he knows, he  _ knows _ and Andrew needs to do what he can to get that information out.

Kevin, though, tells him immediately after his hand leaves his throat.

“He’s in Baltimore. He’s with his father.”

* * *

Half-truths become full truths from a mouth other than Neil’s, and the night is spent waiting in silence until Wymack receives a call.

“He’s alive,” he says, and relief hits Andrew like the hurricane that had torn him apart many lives before.

* * *

“I’m sorry,” Neil tells him on the floor of a dirty motel in Baltimore.

Andrew takes in the mess of Neil’s face, the disaster of his arms, the broken look in his endless blue eyes. He thinks about Elias burning alive, thinks about Neil reliving every moment, the fire condensed to dashboard-lighter pinpoints that have traveled up and down his arms the same way the pyre flames had done in Salem. He thinks about knife fights on ship decks, the flash of confidence in Finn’s eyes that Neil has never had when confronted by a blade. He thinks about John escaping a crime family to start his own, headstrong and brave and proud, a stark comparison to the rabbit that had run straight to Andrew.

He thinks about a million Neils over a million lives, and thinks about how not a single one had anything to be sorry for.

“Say it again,” he whispers, letting his hand fall limply to his side, “and I will kill you.”

Neil doesn’t correct him, though they both know it’s the furthest thing from the truth.

* * *

As Neil lets Andrew take him apart in the whispered dark of a bedroom in the mountains, Andrew begins to think that what he wants may not be too far out of his reach.

* * *

“Last I checked you hated me,” Neil says to Andrew in the wake of his fallout with Aaron. It had been hard, really, letting him go. He would never admit it, but it was.

“Everything about you,” Andrew says against Neil’s lips, and Neil leverages himself to keep his weight off of Andrew.

“I’m not as stupid as you think I am,” he says.

“And I’m not as smart as I thought I was,” Andrew replies. “I know better than to do this again. Perhaps it’s the self-destructive streak in me?”

He had known what Aaron was asking Andrew to admit when he’d brought up Neil in their session with Bee. He knew what he wanted to say; that it didn’t matter, that it wasn’t real, that he didn’t care about Neil in the least. But all of them had known what Andrew would end up confirming instead.

Neil was too important to lose.

“I am not a pipe dream,” Neil says, looking down at Andrew with nothing but honesty in his eyes. Andrew hates it. “I’m not going anywhere.”

“I didn’t ask you.”

“Then ask me,” Neil insists. “Or stick around long enough to figure it out for yourself.”

“I’ll get bored of you eventually.”

“Are you sure?” Neil asks. “Rumor has it I’m pretty interesting.”

Andrew thinks back to another life, of oceans and sword fights and chases across the sea.

_ “Ah, Theo. You always find me interesting, in the end.” _

_ “And so I do, unfortunately.” _

“Don’t believe everything you hear,” Andrew says aloud instead, but he kisses Neil anyway.

He takes a risk, takes a chance, and places Neil’s hand on his own chest.

He regrets the action almost immediately. 

It makes him angry, really, that something this small can have such an affect on him.

Andrew Minyard has lived a thousand lives and died a thousand deaths.

He should not be rocked to the core at the feeling of a palm on his chest.

But Neil can feel it and reacts accordingly. He doesn’t push, doesn’t complain, simply keeps his hand where it is, unmoving, letting Andrew adjust to the feeling of Neil’s weight against his own.

“I won’t be like them,” Neil says. “I won’t let you let me be.”

Andrew Minyard has lived a thousand lives and died a thousand deaths.

But that does not mean that the pain he has experienced in this one is any less significant.

* * *

“Well,” Andrew says, standing above a screaming Riko, his racquet held in front of him like a shield as he recalls the echoes of the words of a governor in Salem. “I suppose that settles things, then.”

* * *

Andrew Minyard has a perfect memory.

He can remember every instance that Neil Josten smiles. They’re rare, really; soft, fleeting things that are there and gone, his happiness bleeding through when he lets himself show it. He can remember their anniversaries, though they never celebrate them: the first time they met, the first time they kissed, the first time Neil Josten was made into a reality.

He remembers every fight. Every cold-shouldered argument or every hot-tempered blowout, always made up with ice cream or watching old exy games or kissing until they’ve forgotten to care about the argument at all.

He remembers Neil’s favorite restaurant. Remembers his favorite brand of cereal. Remembers his favorite exy racquet weight and size and manufacturer. He remembers the way Neil laughs when Andrew makes a joke, face expressionless and voice deadpan, but apparently enough to bring Neil near to tears.

He remembers leaving Palmetto.

He remembers missing Neil so much it hurts.

He remembers visiting, though, when he can, remembers picking Neil up from the airport or dropping him off that same week, remembers kisses and skype calls and texts and texts and texts.

He remembers Neil's graduation. Remembers Neil’s first pro team, remembers the still-long-distance until he shuffles his way to Andrew once again.

He remembers Neil’s grin, bright and furious and ridiculously handsome, flashing at Andrew after they win gold at the Olympics. After they win the Championships. After Andrew makes an impossible save. After he makes an impossible goal.

He remembers the first and only time Neil has ever said “I love you”, on their 25th anniversary, in the dark of their room in the house that they’ve owned together for years.

He remembers refusing to say it back, and Neil only laughing as he pulls Andrew in for a kiss.

He remembers retiring. Remembers growing old. Remembers living out his days with Neil content and almost-happy.

He remembers dying, old and very much ready to go.

He remembers not being sad about it, really. He’s died before. He remembers every one of those, too, and he remembers that none of them had ever been this nice.

He does not move forward.

The cycle does not reset.

Andrew is fine with that, though, because there is no need; they had found each other, in the end.

And that is all that matters.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> What's up I'm Gio I'm 23 and all my fics have the same fuckin layout
> 
> Seriously tho I hope this ending is okay. I hope you all enjoyed this fic. I have enjoyed writing it, and I'm thankful to every review I've gotten so far and every one I will get after. They give me life, really. They keep me inspired. You guys are the best.
> 
> Thank you for reading.

**Author's Note:**

> find me on twitter @fairietailed to yell about Fox boys being in love 
> 
> ((you can also find my coffee link there as well if you wanna. Have me write you smth))


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